You’re at a celebrity party outside the UK. Michael Caine is telling another of his anecdotes about how he once made the Queen laugh - a meritorious task - and how it was the "high point" of his entire life. Sean Connery is explaining why it’s ok to hit a woman - only with the palm of your hand, understand.

Phil Collins (who?) is playing the piano, offering another rendition of Another Day in Paradise. Frank Bruno is shadow boxing in the corner and pontificating about the state of the world. "Global warnin’ is a good fing. Soon everywhere will be like Ibiza." Geoff Boycott is practising his cricket swing. Only he’s imagining the bat impacting on an ex-lover’s face.

Alleged comedian Jim Davidson is telling a hilarious joke about a pair of disabled drivers - one black, the other Asian - who have a fatal collision. "Tragically, the cars were a write-off." Everyone laughs uproariously and pours themselves another drink. Bruno laughs sycophantically without understanding the joke.

Ok, dream over. I’m not an economics expert. In fact, I don’t even know if the UK government’s decision to raise the top level of income tax to 50 per cent actually accrues greater revenue. But higher tax does have one undeniably good effect - it drives the most undesirable celebrities out of the UK.

Funny, isn’t it, how the mere mention of a tax hike, which would hardly impoverish anyone on this list, sends the most superficial celebrities into meltdown. I should make clear that I don’t blame people for wanting to leave the UK, but somehow the spectacle of millionaires leaving solely because of tax is vulgar, to say the least. Let’s run through the list above. Most have long since departed while others are threatening to. And tax is always their cited bugbear.

Take Caine, whose autobiography begins with a self-pitying whinge about his poverty-stricken background. He’s been a regular evacuee because of tax, returning to the UK only when Thatcher was in power in the 1980s to "get in touch with his roots" from his Chelsea penthouse. Now the "flatulent windbag" (the late Richard Harris’ excellent description) is threatening to leave again on account of the proposed 50 per cent rate.

Davidson - the one TV comedian who could possibly legitimise political correctness - has long been a resident of Dubai. Boycott, a self-opinionated man with an ego the size of Lord’s cricket ground and dubious domestic morality, lives in Jersey. Collins has moved to Switzerland. Somehow he was willing to do Live Aid but digging out of his own pocket was another thing entirely.

And if, like me, you’re sick of Connery mouthing on about Scottish independence from his luxury hideaway in the Caribbean, then rejoice at the prospect of higher tax. He certainly won’t be back. And perhaps the 50 per cent tax rate will also force Bruno to make good on his promise and leave. He’s been threatening to for years. He’d be a suitable companion for Davidson in Dubai.

Just think of it - if they raised the top rate to 60 per cent you could get rid of another tier of vacuous celebrities. So "punitive" taxation does have its merits, after all.