Peter Hill

ASKING for wealth to be more evenly distributed across society, the Archbishop of Canterbury says rich people should pay more taxes. The idea of trickle-down economics, in which wealth filters from the top down, doesn’t work, claims Dr Justin Welby, because human beings “tend to hold on to what they’ve got”.

Well he should know as a former businessman and head of the Church of England, which has a large property empire.

In reality more taxes mean more taken from middle-income earners because there aren’t enough properly rich people to make much difference and in any case they keep their dosh beyond the taxman’s reach. The middle is already hard pressed and to squeeze more would be monstrously unfair.

What is the justification for further redistribution of income? It’s right that society should take decent care of those unable to fend for themselves but the benefit system has swollen beyond reason. Why should hard workers who slog away year after year hand over their wages to able individuals who can’t be bothered to get up in the morning?

If trickle-down economics doesn’t work it’s because taxes are already far too high and earners haven’t enough left to trickle down. q HOW come the public are only now being told that rice contains dangerous quantities of arsenic? Scientists must have known this for decades yet it has been a secret to most of us. Or is this another example of fake news? Surely if rice was that deadly there would be a lot fewer people in China and India. The truth is that everything we eat kills us in the end so why worry? q IF I were President Trump I would cancel my trip to Britain. Why take the trouble to visit a piffling little country whose Parliament is so up itself that it refuses entry to the leader of the free world, where hysterical swarms of right-on protesters will greet me with vitriolic demos, a place where clearly I’m not welcome?

Mr Trump has gone out of his way to be nice to us, to assure us that we shall be at the front of the queue for trade deals, that the special relationship really exists. He welcomed our Prime Minister before any other. In return people here are determined to snub and insult him. q MANY workers eat the same lunch every day, usually a ham sandwich, it’s claimed. And not just the workers. I’m sure most people settle for the same old meals week in week out. There is a shelf full of recipe books in our kitchen and that’s where they stay – on the shelf.

I did try recently to copy a really simple dish demonstrated on MasterChef by Monica Galetti but my version was rubbish. Some amateur cooks profess to be Cordon Bleu but I can’t remember a kitchen supper where the food was truly top notch.

I wouldn’t try to build my own car or rewire the house. I’d go to a professional. Same with cooking. Anyway, I really like roast chicken. q DAVID Beckham seems still to be in the public doghouse because of his angry tirade over not getting a knighthood but give the lad a break. He has been a wonderful ambassador for Britain, a superlative sportsman, someone who has conducted himself impeccably apart from one outburst in a private email. We are too quick to turn on our heroes and icons when they display human weakness. q AMAZING how the experts who warned that Brexit would be a disaster now admit that Britain is doing better than ever. Even Bank of England governor Mark Carney, one of the loudest Remoaners, says we have a bright future. Yet many of the great and good are still bent on stopping us leaving the EU.

Although MPs reluctantly backed the start of the process the House of Lords seems likely to delay it with amendments. If they manage to frustrate the biggest demonstration of democratic will in our history unelected peers must be stripped of power for ever. It’s long overdue. q HOW much further can reality TV go? The Jump is the latest challenge and I salute anyone brave enough to launch themselves down that terrifying slide. As well as various quizzes people compete at painting, pottery, sewing, baking, cooking, singing, dancing, spelling, herding sheep, falling off logs and stuff, surviving in jungles and on islands and at sex – or is Big Brother about something else?

I scoff or cringe watching horrifying humiliation but I have to admire the self-belief and guts of all these crazy optimists desperate to have a go. Rather than subject myself to such an ordeal I would crawl on broken glass… but not in front of the cameras. q PENSIONERS are better off than workers – just the latest moan about the elderly. That’s very far from true for most pensioners but even if it were a fact there is one huge drawback: growing old. Be careful what you wish for. q AND finally another little moan of my own (“What? Another one?” you say). Why do shops and suppliers insist on gluing labels on goods so tightly that you can’t get them off? I bought a hammer the other day and still haven’t managed to remove the barcode label with scrubbing, soaking or scraping.

It’s bad enough that itchy labels are sewn into the necks of shirts and pullovers and that it’s almost impossible to buy anything without a massive logo.

Listen to the customers.