For the elite of big cities, paying per mile makes sense.

They worry about climate change and too many people driving past their front door, rather than how to keep their trusty old car drivable so they can get to their jobs or loved ones.

The amounts charged for weekend driving or weekly shopping trips will not put much of a dent in their bank accounts. If they work in the public sector, they may even be able to get their union to force Labour to agree that the taxpayer should cover all work-related costs..

But for the millions who get up early in the morning and set off while others still have the curtains closed in their bedrooms, this would be an additional tax burden.

Those who had to go to work during the lockdowns and were considered “essential workers” now face taxation simply for the need to go to work.

In addition to the moral arguments against such a regressive tax, there are obviously also practical arguments. How can every vehicle movement in an area be recorded?

The last time such a system was mooted a generation ago, it envisioned everything from electronic boxes in cars to mobile phone apps.

All of these measures proved obviously impractical and the enforcement measures required to counter the obvious circumvention tactics would have created a costly industry in themselves.

Even if these practical and technical difficulties could be overcome, the implications for privacy would be enormous.

Any pay-per-mile system relies on knowing how many miles you’ve driven in certain areas or on certain roads. What happens to that data? Who has or could have access to it? Can the government really justify routinely collecting so much information about the daily lives of citizens who are not suspected of any crime??

When this type of tax was last proposed in the 2000s, the justification given was air pollution in our city centres. However, the increasing number of electric vehicles, better fuel efficiency and the decreasing number of diesel vehicles have already solved this problem.

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A vehicle tax calculated per mile is quite simply an attack on the freedom and ability to use your own car/van to earn a living, visit relatives or simply have fun.

Now that the politics of envy and ecological virtue are back in Downing Street, they are rising from the political graveyard to reach out to the working class in Britain. But it is precisely these voters who can fight back.

During the campaign for the Uxbridge by-election, it quickly became clear how popular Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ tax was with many voters who Labour was confident would support it.

Now the Conservative Party must give voters across the UK an equal opportunity to oppose any damaging move by Labour to impose a mileage tax.