Here, via Tim Worstall, is the blandly smiling, terrifying Tooheyesque face of Richard Murphy, a man bent on extracting ever-more tax to increase the flow of his collectivist coffee:

It is in the private sector that we need cuts – or more tax if they refuse to do it. The reason is straightforward: much (and I know, not all) of what the the private sector does is froth on the top of the cappuccino, nice but wholly unnecessary.

It’s the state sector that provides what we need most: health, education, housing (oh yes – all of it is regulated), safe food (oh yes – again, we only have that because it is regulated), transport infrastructure, safety, protection and so much more.

They are, if you like the coffee in life. The froth is the extra. And we can do without some froth – we can’t do without the coffee.

Curious how he confuses the fact that the state regulates all these things with the idea that the state provides them.

Oh, and what is the basis for deciding what is or is not ‘wholly unnecessary’? That’s a big adverb there, Mr Murphy.

I wonder how much money/coffee from the state goes into his private pocket?

He: undertakes work on taxation policy for a wide range of clients including governments, government agencies, commercial organisations, aid agencies and pressure groups in the UK and abroad.

Who needs a gravy train when there is a gushing state-run coffee geyser instead?

If you want to come up for a gasp of clean air, read this brilliant little piece about sliced bread and how progress and wealth come from the almost invisible growth of small drops of private cleverness.

Cafe Hayek: where orders emerge.

Because countless free people do things.

Not because a Murphyist ‘government agency’ or a ‘pressure group’ decides one day that they are wholly necessary.