A great little post I spotted at the Adam Smith Institute regarding increasing duties on flights has the following insightful paragraph (emphasis mine) :

This duty hike is especially rotten because it taxes one of the most fun things most people have in their lives. Spending months toiling in boring jobs, with even lower-rate taxpayers already forced to pay nearly 40% of it to the government through income tax and VAT, is often only bearable because of the hope of a few weeks away in an exotic country. Certainly, the ministers behind the hike won’t be affected, and like cigarette and alcohol duties this is a regressive tax that will hit the people least able to pay the hardest. Adam Smith once wrote that taxes should be proportionate, nonarbitrary, convenient and low. I’d add one point – that they don’t try to stamp out fun.

Too fucking right!