To the pages of London’s Evening Standard, where Greg Wise announces that he and his wife Emma Thompson are to take a stand against tax avoidance.

Claiming to live in “the poor bit” of West Hampstead, north London, Wise declares: “I want to stop paying tax till everyone pays tax. I have actively loved paying tax, because I am a profound fucking socialist and I believe we are all in it together. But I am disgusted with HMRC. I am disgusted with HSBC. And I’m not paying a penny more until those evil bastards go to prison … We’re going to get a load of us together. A movement. They can’t send everyone to prison. But we’ll go to prison if necessary. I mean it. It’s going to be like 1848 again.”

Lest there be any doubt, he confirms: “Em’s on board.”

Yet might the efforts of the Thompson-Wises be directed more effectively elsewhere? Lost in Showbiz is reminded of their close friendship with Prince Charles, which Emma in particular has frequently seemed at pains to highlight. Dancing with HRH is “better than sex”, she said a year or two ago, and most recently pops up in the pages of Catherine Mayer’s biography of Charles, speculating at one point that he is “driven by guilt”. “We talk a lot about the guilt that comes with privilege,” she says.

Mm. Would it be too much to hope that one of these talks might one day segue into a discussion about tax? After all, members of the Commons public accounts committee remain troubled about the exemption from corporation tax enjoyed by the Duchy of Cornwall, wondering whether this permits a level playing field for rival businesses that aren’t deemed a crown body. As the PAC chair Margaret Hodge has put it: “What started off 700 years ago as a medieval estate, today demonstrates all the features of a modern big corporation, yet it hangs on to old habits such as exemption from corporation tax.”

What a tailor-made first mission for our latter-day Chartists this could be, and they are urged to report back on it at their absolute earliest.