Best Of

"Lloyd Evans
Why the farmers’ protest probably won’t work"

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-farmers-protest-probably-wont-work/

In spite of my views I think he is right here. Has any major protest ever worked? The poll tax stuff felled Thatcher but really it was more of an excuse to get rid of her than the reason.

Iraq War - nope
Gaza - nope
Countryside alliance - nope
Brexit protests - nope.
CND marches of the 1960s - nope

Serious question, has any major protest of this kind ever actually got a reversal in a policy? I mean in the UK of course. Some European protests seem to have more success and the CIvil Rights Marches in the US certainly made a difference.

They work if they have voters behind them in polls, which this farmers protest does.

In 2003 by contrast most voters backed the Iraq War and toppling Saddam, in 2002 most voters wanted hunting foxes with hounds banned, in 2016 most voters voted for Brexit and in 2019 for Boris to deliver it and in the 1960s most voters backed a nuclear deterrent while the Soviet Union had nukes. The Gaza protests are irrelevant as the UK can't control what Israel does anyway.

In 1990 by contrast the poll tax protests were successful as they had voters behind them and Thatcher was toppled by her own party by the end of the year and replaced by John Major who scrapped the poll tax and replaced it with council tax.

The fact most voters and all opposition parties oppose the tractor tax is crucial because on the latest polls Labour likely will lose its majority at the next GE

Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

I'm not remotely left-liberal, but I don't get the sentimental drivel people spout about farming, any more than I did about coal mines in the 90s. Like any other marginal industry, if farmers can't survive without their epic tax breaks and subsidies they should go under, to allow the labour, land and capital to be used more efficiently by others. And small farms that benefit from the IHT break are exactly the least efficient ones that should go under first. Property doesn't suddenly become a national treasure because you plant crops or whatever on it. The world isn't short of food.

Having lower IHT is a good idea, but we should lower the overall rate rather than give out undeserved bungs to special interest groups, many of whom just use it as a tax dodge anyway.

Ultra libertarian fanaticism with no concern for the national interest.

We should have kept some coal mines as we need to secure our own energy in the age of Putin and lockdowns and renewables and nuclear alone are nowhere near enough as yet to supply it all.

We need to grow more of our own food even more so and the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land

Congratulations.

That is literally the most evidence free post I have ever seen on PB. And I've read @Leon's posts about AI.

Nothing evidence free about it, as I said we need to secure our own energy and our own food.

It is no wonder free market globalist liberals like you are losing elections all over the world at the moment. As you are so focused on being citizens of nowhere, living anywhere as long as it is expensive and working for global corporations and organisations you have forgotten the interests of the nation you were born and raised in and its people

"the best way to provide food for the nation is family farms rooted in the land"

Is it? Does that actually produce more food? I mean, it might do. But it's a bald assertion made without the tiniest scintilla of actual evidence.

I think it's the best way to provide good quality food. I look at American produce quality and shudder.

And American food isn't even cheap now....

It was never as cheap as ours. Farms, combined with the highly competitive food retail sector have given us the best food for the money in the developed world - second to France I'd say, but nobody else. Saying how broken it all is and how we should put two fingers up to Farmer Giles and get Monsanto in to do it better is peak left wing hypocritical tribe.

Farmers have always had a rough deal from governments. Remember the campaigns over the milk price.

Successive governments have prioritised cheap food for the masses over farmers' economic wellbeing. And I don't necessarily disagree with that.

But hence the anger over this measure.

That's because there are 70 million people that consume food, and a few hundred thousand that produce it. And given that - especially for the poorest - their food costs are an enormous chunk of their income, then it would be politically brave to prioritize farmers' incomes over pensioners dinners.

Well at the moment this useless government is proposing to destroy farmers incomes and assets and freeze lots of pensioners to death in winter so is prioritising neither!

How does changing IHT have even the slightest impact on farmers' incomes?

It destroys the value of their investments as well as losing much of the family farm on the farmers death

"Lloyd Evans
Why the farmers’ protest probably won’t work"

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-farmers-protest-probably-wont-work/

In spite of my views I think he is right here. Has any major protest ever worked? The poll tax stuff felled Thatcher but really it was more of an excuse to get rid of her than the reason.

Iraq War - nope
Gaza - nope
Countryside alliance - nope
Brexit protests - nope.
CND marches of the 1960s - nope

Serious question, has any major protest of this kind ever actually got a reversal in a policy? I mean in the UK of course. Some European protests seem to have more success and the CIvil Rights Marches in the US certainly made a difference.