News which will probably please fans of anyone who attends live performances in Britain: the government is to ban tickets being resold for more than their face value.

Anyone who’s tried to buy a ticket to a concert, a play or pretty much anything else will be familiar with the situation: touts who bot loads of tickets instantly and then sell them for vast markups, causing fans to face the prospect of paying those prices or miss out.

The government is trying to solve this by the highly populist move of putting a price control in, banning tickets being sold for more than was originally paid (although you can still sell for less if you find yourself with four seats to whoever’s just been cancelled.)

The reaction seems overwhelmingly positive, but price controls have never had a good outcome and this start on the slope is well meaning but do we really want to go there?