At last, a group of MPs intent on reforming our madly unfair council tax | Heather Stewart

The system relies on valuations from 1991, when Gorbachev was in power, but has become politically untouchable

It's a fairness thing. Just the idea that somebody sitting in a two-bedroom house in Hartlepool is paying more council tax than somebody who's living in a mansion - it's just offensive."

The Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash, Hartlepool's MP, is on a mission to draw attention to an issue he jokingly calls the third rail of British politics" - because no mainstream party, including his own, wants to touch it for fear of electoral death.