I SPOTTED this as part of Philip Johnston’s article in The Daily Telegraph and think it deserves wider viewing.

Ten drinkers decide to settle their £100 weekly beer bill roughly as we pay taxes. The first four men (the poorest) paid nothing, the fifth paid £1, the sixth £3, the seventh £7, the eighth £12, the ninth £18 and the tenth man, the richest, paid £59.

The barman offered them a £20 discount for being good customers and the group wanted to continue to pay the new £80 bill the same way.

The first four men still drank for free, the other six divided up the £20 windfall by using a progressive tax system. So the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing, making a 100 per cent saving; the sixth man paid £2 instead of £3 (a 33 per cent saving); the seventh man paid £5 instead of £7 (a 28 per cent saving); the eighth £9 instead of £12 (a 25 per cent saving); and the ninth £14 instead of £18 (a 22 per cent saving). The tenth man paid £49 instead of £59 (a 16 per cent saving).

The men compared their savings. “I only got £1 out of the £20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the 10th man: “He got £10 – the wealthy get all the breaks.”

“Wait a minute,” said the first four men, “we didn’t get anything – the new system exploits the poor.”

So the other nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next week he didn’t show for drinks, so when the nine came to pay, they discovered they didn’t have enough money between them to pay even half the bill.

Jim Tague, Bishop Auckland.