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rone, surely the point of the inheritance tax on farms was to close the loophole that allowed greedy ****s like Clarkson so pass his wealth on to his offspring with no financial penalty? The lack of understanding on that point, and blatant mis-information from the National Farmers Union, meant that every man and his pig thought they were being shafted.
rone, surely the point of the inheritance tax on farms was to close the loophole that allowed greedy ****s like Clarkson so pass his wealth on to his offspring with no financial penalty? The lack of understanding on that point, and blatant mis-information from the National Farmers Union, meant that every man and his pig thought they were being shafted.
If that's the case why such a last minute watering down?
(Clarkson is primarily wealthy through broadcasting - let's be clear. )
The farm thing is secondary to being paid for a show. I think that goes unnoticed and sure he's got very clever accountants who realised that putting his money into this set-up was a win-win.
I'm deffo not against inheritance tax (not being a benefactor myself 😁) but not for the reasons expressed. We need inheritance tax because the people who benefit just own more and more stuff at the expense of everyone else.
The whole idea that they're being taxed twice is utter crap. Every movement on money outside inheritance gets constantly taxed. That argument needs demolishing. Pretending you get money and it only gets taxed once is utterly bonkers.
And on top of that these people benefit from doing nothing whilst assets increase in value so it absolutely has to be taxed.
What I'm saying is the Labour strategy was random - and the watering down at this stage proves it to be. The issue is here the farmers have won politically - they made the argument that they provide the nation's food. Labour didn't think through the debate which is why I assume they've slackened off.
As I've said time and time again there's no appetite for large tax rises. No government wants to go near it.
So pretending we can tax to get money is a busted flush anyway. The system needs rewiring from a 'spend first' - tax later perspective. Labour don't have the balls to tax the wealthy enough as proven here. So by there own 'rules' they will be short at the exchequer. The wealthy want it all ways - that's the battle.
It's a big fail.
We really needed a radical government.
Farmers say no.
Bond market says no .
OBR says no.
Fiscal rules say no .
Everyone apart from the people that need the money the most are stopping a weak government from doing anything remotely life-changing. It's a sham of a democracy, and in the process killing off Centrism as a limp wristed solution - which is a good but volatile thing to do.
Got to say Tim Stanley and Ash Sarker are absolutely models at understanding the state of current politics.
I agree with much of both of their perspectives.
It's quite obvious how farmers with collective power can dictate the economic terms to the government but the BMA are juvenile delinquents.
What I'm saying is the Labour strategy was random - and the watering down at this stage proves it to be
Yep, you can’t argue with that.
Agreed, it was a stupid pointless u turn. Unfortunately it seems to be the governments MO. They've already had the negative publicity, making changes now won't undo any of that. And the principle was fine, why should family businesses that produce food be any different to any other family business passed on through the family.
And Rone, you missed the point about Clarkson et al, yes they made their money through other means, investing in a farm as an asset was a good way to pass it on without incurring inheritance tax. The next generation weren't going to be farmers, they would just liquidate the asset later having avoided inheritance tax. Exac5ly the sort of wealth hoarding you don't like.
The economic planning is awful here. You can't build as system reacting to angry farmers.
Labour created the ‘angry farmer’ problem so they’ve had to reverse their bad policy.
A policy that showed the massive disconnect between career politicians and a farming industry they had no clue about.
But the ‘angry farmer’ problem, I would argue, was of their own making (you’ve just said that!). Had they come out and said they were after the millionaires that are investing in farms as a tax loophole and not after actual proper farmers, then it might have made a difference. Bad comms, and mis-truths by the NFU according to Richard Murphy (I can’t find the clip, but it’s on YouTube somewhere) left them in a pickle!
Oh, and I enjoyed that edition of Newsnight. I don’t often watch, or indeed listen, to Mr O’Connell as we have history, but that was very interesting and grownup.
And the principle was fine, why should family businesses that produce food be any different to any other family business passed on through the family.
Exactly, and it should have been sold as that in as much as why are farmers businesses getting special treatment, combined with the obvious wealthy playing the system side of it as well.
Either all businesses should be inheritance tax free or none at all
Labour have handled it as they seem to handle everything, without a ****ing clue.
Labour didn't create the angry farmer, they've been angry and vocal for years. They hated the EU, they moaned when subsidies were cut post Brexit, they don't like environmental protection etc. The bottom line is most family farms don't work financially without subsidies and special treatment. The food production capacity won't disappear, it'll be absorbed into bigger more commercially viable farms.
This U turn just helps cement farmers belief they are somehow special.
clarcksons farm is worth £12m (he bought it for 8m - as a tax dodge), the new cap is 2.5m? so he will be taxed when passing it on
(obviously the daily mail are out to save him from paying any tax)
this number seems a sensible compromise, but obviously should have been thought out long before rolling out
https://bsky.app/profile/danneidle.bsky.social/post/3manvi2b24k2i
Your occasional reminder that many farmers rent their farmland from families who have kept their land tax free for many, many generations. This uturn is helping landowners keep more of their wealth in the family than Labour had planned. Plenty of young farmers will now find it harder to buy land, because there is less pressure for rich landowners to sell off parcels of their land, and in addition small farms, and parts of small farms, that do go on the market will continue to be bought by people after a tax dodge (a five million pound estate is quite a thing to be able to hand on tax free to your kids).
👆✅️✅️✅️
A lot of landowners pretending to be farmers. A lot of farmers being told they're gonna be taxed like multimillionaire landlords!
Not a surprise to anyone who has noticed this government are operating a continuation right-wing economic model without sufficient redistribution or substantial spending to fix 40+ years of decay.
https://bsky.app/profile/the-independent.com/post/3mbgrmkc6ai2e
Genuinely think most people don't understand the amount of change we really need to make a proper improvement to people's lives.
This was the last chance saloon.
Capitulation has failed miserably, it was always going to, it was never the grown up sensible decision, it was always the cowards way. The only way Trump was going to be put back in the bottle was to make the US economy suffer so the Americans themselves curtailed his power and removed him.
Every capitulation has empowered project2025. The "markets" have hit record highs as working people are continuing to be dragged into poverty.
Time to stop dismissing the solutions, we need to ban the oligarchy propaganda machines, we need to end the owning of politics by wealthy, we need to start offering solutions instead of pretending there is nothing that can be done, and we need a leader not an idiot with his head so far up Trumps arse he is tonguing his tonsils from below.
Project2025 will be enacted in Europe and the UK as well if we don't change direction now.
All of that.
Duplicate as below.
All of that.
Things are unravelling fast.
I find it shocking to believe that Starmer's approval ratings have sunk even lower recently - and especially as he's unpopular with both the left and the right now.
That's some achievement.
It was the worst possible time for incompetent technocrats to take the reigns. It was bloody obvious from the get go to me we needed to go far away from what the Tories had done. No one in their right mind could have not understood this.
This latest rebrand to fix the cost of living needs to be serious and not just a flaky £150 that only some leccy companies will pass on. Dismal.
When I look back at the hatchet Labour policies/plans I can't believe the rubbish they've chucked out. Random authoritarian tweaks here and there, all the absolute cock-ups with Wfa the disability stuff and more recently the landowner inheritance softening. Not to mention distance memories of future runways for growth - when?
What are they about ? I've no idea but it's no good for the country.
The "markets" have hit record highs as working people are continuing to be dragged into poverty
Your single biggest clue that there's been plenty of money that has been created by government in interest income driving an asset bubble. BoE interest rate policy is the most regressive political choice currently - doing nothing other than handing money out to people with money.
No fiscal rules on that spending.
Genuinely think most people don't understand the amount of change we really need to make a proper improvement to people's lives.
Agree, but what government has ever made really radical changes - they all just seem to tinker and makes things slightly better or slightly worse.
what government has ever made really radical changes
The post war governments, that is the scale of change needed, it has been done before it can be done again, pretending otherwise is heading us towards living under the boot of fascism. Inaction is no longer a viable option, brexit was a minor step on the path, time to look at the big picture instead of just one of the symptoms of failure.
Remaining an ally of the US and continuing its neoliberal empire building is the core problem, we are no longer at peace, the war is being fought through the economy and information, and we aren't offering a resistance, the military will be the final step and may not even be needed.
Genuinely think most people don't understand the amount of change we really need to make a proper improvement to people's lives.
Agree, but what government has ever made really radical changes - they all just seem to tinker and makes things slightly better or slightly worse.
We had such a false flag with Thatcherism (selling off what we already owned to less people) we thought that was going to be better. We've been stuck in that legacy ever since.
'But if we can just do it a bit better' has been the political way forward ever since. A absolute refusal from the political class to actually look at other ideas.
The decline has been protracted.
Pulling out of that will take some inertia.
At the same time there is an appetite for something new. But it's all born out of systemic failure to fix people's material conditions.
And the principle was fine, why should family businesses that produce food be any different to any other family business passed on through the family.
Exactly, and it should have been sold as that in as much as why are farmers businesses getting special treatment, combined with the obvious wealthy playing the system side of it as well.
Either all businesses should be inheritance tax free or none at all
Labour have handled it as they seem to handle everything, without a ****ing clue.
No I disagree.
The reason why farms should be getting special treatment is because they own large areas of land and are therefore worth a lot on paper, but they don't actually make a huge amount of money each year (and the returns are highly volatile).
If inheritance tax was applied at a high rate, it would be impossible for an heir to pay the tax bill from the profits of the farm, therefore forcing sale. It would essentially destroy the notion of the family farm.
Thresholds for inheritance tax on farms therefore need to be carefully balanced so that a farmer can pass on land of sufficient size for the heir to be able to earn a reasonable living, yet still hit the wealthy people who are using it to avoid tax.
You can apply that to so many businesses, “the family underpants factory is worth a lot on paper, but has barely made a profit in any of the last 50 years”. Of course a family clothing business is more likely to be paying a landlord than own the land, just like so many farmers. Tax breaks and subsidies for farmers are one thing, tax breaks that only land owners can take advantage of are something else. Like many/all taxes on wealth the “we’re only rich on paper” argument is easy to deploy.
The farmers (landowners) have been given an easy ride because Labour decided the negative noise was too bad. No actually technical reason at all.
As many of my friends have to keep being schooled - inheritance tax is essential and it's not being taxed twice.
You are being taxed on an increase that with little effort you have accumulated wealth.
When it is transferred - and just like any other transaction must be taxed to destroy some of that wealth going to just a few people who begin to own way more than everyone else through no effort.
Tax in this case is a rebalancing exercise because land and property is in short supply, and naturally increases in value.
The wealthy get away with murder.
A farm is just a business and the Tories go to great pains to tell us business can only survive on its own merits but some farmers have done okay under this 'free market environment' with ahem subsidies - and hedge/rewilding schemes etc. it's a preferential bung to a favoured group of people and voters.
I'm okay with that as long as other groups of people that are struggling or looking for help don't get told - we can't help you there is no money.
A lot of the problem is that (farm)land is over valued, partly as the rich bought farmland- specifically as a tax dodge and this and its increase in value makes its an attractive asset for share funds
A lot of the problem is that (farm)land is over valued, partly as the rich bought farmland- specifically as a tax dodge
A linked issue is that there is rollover relief. Where if a "farmer" gets planning permission for some land and sells it they can then buy more farmland and get to defer the tax owed.
There was a tiny march today from a group calling themselves Bristol Patriots. Too small to be really worth mentioning, but I did like this form the local paper:
The first protest has been organised by a group calling themselves Bristol Patriots. The group say their protest is an anti-Government and anti-Keir Starmer.
A counter-protest was called by a coalition of anti-racism groups in Bristol. They have titled their counter-protest 'We Hate Keir Starmer More Than You'.
excellent interview here
https://samf.substack.com/p/interview-with-john-bew-adviser-to
its quite defence focused but a genuine view from inside government(s)
one thing that it highlights and its something ive seen elsewhere is that Starmer is more suited to international relations, he seems far more focused than he does as PM and would probably make a great foreign secretary, rather than a PM that cant tell a story.
The next election will be about beating farage, Starmer needs to have a story he can tell to counter farage's (which is just be a mini trump)
one thing that it highlights and its something ive seen elsewhere is that Starmer is more suited to international relations, he seems far more focused than he does as PM and would probably make a great foreign secretary, rather than a PM that cant tell a story.
Starmer is great at photo shoots with international leaders, giving the impression that he is a statesman, but like everything else he does he delivers **** all. He is fortunate to have such a poor bunch in Europe to be compared to at the moment (fortunate for his or, a ****ing disaster for the rest of us). Carney nocks the spots of the lot of them (and I never really rated him as governor of the bank of England, I didn't expect him to step up and do the job as well as he has).
He lies as much as Boris, and loves a photoshoot as much as Truss. Personally I would prefer he based himself on some of the post war labour leaders who actually achieved things for the people of this country, rather than failed tory boys and girls.
I see there is also a timely piece on the BBC this morning suggesting Starmer has had success on the international stage, so we are seeing a push of the labour spin doctors to push the "statesman" narrative and pivot away from all his other failures.
or maybe he really is just better at the international stuff than domestic, they obviously require different skill sets
or maybe he really is just better at the international stuff than domestic, they obviously require different skill sets
Unfortunately that isn't a compelling reason to vote for a leader of the UK 😉
or maybe he really is just better at the international stuff than domestic, they obviously require different skill sets
By the way that article you posted actually doesn't say much about Starmer at all, if anything Sunak gets more praise than Starmer. There is nothing in it that states or even suggest that the interviewee considers him a "statesman" or particularly good at international relations.
There is nothing in it that states or even suggest that the interviewee considers him a "statesman" or particularly good at international relations.
Well he did quickly pick up Trump's papers when he dropped them. Maybe Sunak could have done the same, we'll never know.
I see there is also a timely piece on the BBC this morning suggesting Starmer has had success on the international stage, so we are seeing a push of the labour spin doctors to push the "statesman" narrative and pivot away from all his other failures.
I don't buy any of that.
Very thinly veiled. Can't measure the impact on people's lives and clearly no one has noticed or cares because they're trying to pay the bills.
There's plenty to do here thanks that would transformative.
I see there is also a timely piece on the BBC this morning suggesting Starmer has had success on the international stage, so we are seeing a push of the labour spin doctors to push the "statesman" narrative and pivot away from all his other failures.
I don't buy any of that.
Very thinly veiled. Can't measure the impact on people's lives and clearly no one has noticed or cares because they're trying to pay the bills.
There's plenty to do here thanks that would transformative.
Perhaps relevant to drop this here with this government getting into bed with palintir , just how the actual **** they decided this is good idea I have no words for
Steve from the excellent gamersnexus investigative channel rips palintir
"Foreign trips can help fix the cost of living crisis" 🤡
Keir Starmer has defended his frequent trips out of the country to Labour MPs, attempting to draw a direct link with the cost of living at home, which he warned would not be solved by isolationism.
This bloke cannot do anything economically sound.
He genuinely believes the cost of living is best solved by investment from abroad (which is always extractive - they will want their profit) and totally ignoring the only place the pound can come from is the UK.
He seriously needs to get a grip on what is making us poorer and the solution is not data centres and defence spending.
These people are truly ridiculous.
In a significant shift, Starmer also adopted a more upbeat tone than he has to date on how the country would see “change and renewal” under Labour this year, with 2026 seen inside government as the “year of proof
I bet you all my bikes it doesn't. I bet you it goes downhill.
He is now the "manager" we have all worked with who uses meetings as an excuse to hide from work.
Trying to rebuild relationships, especially with the EU, absolutely is about the cost of living. Our economy doesn’t really end at the English Channel, and that is especially true when it comes to food.
yes that would be great if it was what he was doing, I guess you bought that bullshit last week where he was muttering about being in the single market while simultaneously ruling out being in a customs union and freedom of movement. It the sort of bullshit that the Tories used to come out with, that we could have all the advantages of membership while still totally independent, it was rightly scoffed at then as it should be now.
Just the same as the cutting red tape, free the investors, trickle down bullshit he comes out with.
The blatant hypocrisy and lies are piling up day after day, they are impossible to ignore, unless you want to.
Trying to rebuild relationships, especially with the EU, absolutely is about the cost of living. Our economy doesn’t really end at the English Channel, and that is especially true when it comes to food.
I'd really like to know how a government that constantly avoids investment of the level needed to fix the things we require 'needs' to develop relationships as opposed to just get down and do the dirty work here. Besides, crow all you want Starmer doesn't have time to develop relationships - I think even you Kelvin said the EU might take years to get even get a sniff of. It will be pretty useless by then as they're all dying under the same economic model.
The economic power can come from within - but they're so obsessed with trying to get investment as opposed to invest themselves.
This whole technocratic approach is useless. Literally an exercise in liberal hand-shakery. I don't actually believe Starmer is even serious about the EU either. He will just never be forthright enough to actually make a decision on anything transformative.
We need to DO stuff, first. EU later.
The good news in the UK's rising unemployment rate
https://www.ft.com/content/67616c79-210b-46c2-8a4e-b9772d40db1f
Basically more people becoming economically inactive (eg early retirement) rather than job cuts per se
I fail to see that as a positive even though I've been in that category for 23 years. I could have gone on running a business, providing employment, paying a pile of tax for the government to spend... but it was a lot of stress, long hours, made family life complicated and wasn't worth it.
There's a wole thread about the problem wrongly titled pensions - it's really a thread about people wanting to quit the world of work as soon as they can because commuting is shit, the modern work place is shit, technology and screens are shit, HR are bastards, holidays are short, targets are unacheiveable, workers feel exploited with low wages in high profit businesses, customers are arse holes.... .
Being an employee was never glorious but in 2026 for far too many it's properly dire to the point they'll go as soon as they can because they get nothing but misery out of going to work. I know people who when they entered their professions enjoyed their work, a vocation , but quit when fear of legal action, negative interactions, admin and ever more restrictive practices got the better of their passion.
Junior and his very highly educated mates are all too aware of this. They are perfect high flyer material but several don't want to fly high because their experience of high flying work is that it is miserable and too often immoral. Today he'll be teaching some kids to ski. They want out and they're not 30 yet
Society is wasting talent because the work place is neither human nor humane.