A senior Conservative MP has condemned as "the politics of envy" a suggestion by Nick Clegg that the wealthiest people in Britain should pay more tax.

In a newspaper interview, the deputy prime minister suggested the richest pay more for a limited time as part of what he called a "longer economic war" to bring about recovery.

But the Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, the chairman of the Commons Public Administration Committee, told the Today programme "if the politics of envy made a country rich we would be a very rich country because we have a lot of the politics of envy in this country.

"I think most rich people are contributing far more in tax than other people. I know this isn't a very fashionable view but if you go on raising taxes on rich people. It''s why we had to cut, and why Nick Clegg agreed to cut, the top rate of tax from 50 pence to 45 pence because actually you drive wealth abroad if you over-tax wealthy people.

"This is a pre-conference easy clap line."

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