In the news

If anyone uses Farage as a style inspo then they deserve all they get, might as well dress like a dandy highwayman and be done with it.

Speaking of land grapping .? Have a look at caste greens portfolio previous known as watkin jones.

Unpopular opinion on here, but I think this tax is bad policy and bad politics.

Why?

Read in the standard today that there is a war on sandwiches.

What a world we live in.

Cracks me up that even farmers have fashion to follow.
Flat caps, those shirts with a broad crossed line pattern, either Barbour jackets or those felt efforts, pretty much every single one of them.
And none of it cheap neither...

I know there's a practical reasoning behind it, but not so much in the pub, in the landrover dealership, at the pool, on the protest march and so on

I was in Westminster today where the nfu conference was and that was the general attire. Two observations:

A phalanx of fake farmers leaving the tufton street offices

Lots of wellies that had never seen the countryside

Agree that this is bad policy. Land prices have soared, currently nearly 10k per acre if you're anywhere down south. You probably need somewhere near 500 acres to make a reasonable living, so do the maths.

If farmers have to sell off some of that land to pay for their IHT bill, it's very likely to be bought by a wealthy non-farmer wanting to build a lovely huge house, further taking land out of farming.

Part of the outrage is how little time people have before the new rules apply. Older farmers who had been preparing to give the farm to one of their children feel like they've had the rug pulled out from under them and now have to desperately try to replan everything pretty quickly.

I empathise with their frustration.

FWIW, I agree with raising more tax via IHT. I think the government have got their thresholds wrong, though. I think they're accidentally going to have an impact on family farms rather than the massive landowners I think they should be targeting.

Like the 4x4s, but that must be a thing, farm chic

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rlk0d2vk2o

I thought this was informative, i could be wrong though, or maybe trying to read my own opinions into it

"This brings the total untaxed amount for a farming couple to up to £3m"

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Yup, people are focussed on the fundraising aspect of this (which they like because it feels like a wealth tax) without thinking about taxes acting as behavioural levers within certain markets. Farming land isn't idle wealth, it works for its living and needs a certain economy of scale. Being able to pass it on between generations without associated tax means that farms that just about scrape by can be kept going, which is good because of food security. If those farms now have to sell off parcels of land just to be inherited then that land is going to be snapped up by exactly the kind of speculator that we want to keep away from them.

It's yet another blunt tool which catches a lot of people who are just about currently doing ok, but now won't be. It just seems like a strange effect for a left-wing government to have, essentially "sorry, you're not quite rich enough to deserve that. It'll find its way into the hands of someone who is."

^ this

The tax raised on Labours own figures is minimal.

It is hard to avoid the view that the intention of the policy is to drive significant change in land use. What are the ecological and environmental impacts? Do we want to be driving more food imports? Will this increase even further the ultra processed food in people's diets?

Perhaps all this has been thought about, and there is a strategy that:

• improves food security
  
• reduces food miles
  
• improves food quality and diet of UK citizens and reduces cost of high quality food
  
• improves quality of land husbandry from an environmental and ecological perspective
  
• allows change of use for the right land to development or green energy purposes
  
  

If there is, put that strategy in the public domain.

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Our workshop landlord is a farmer and a proper cunt. Obviously he was in town today for some sabre rattling.
He owns about 600+acres of land between Harlow and Cambridge in various parcels, mostly rented out to other farmers- basically when a farmer needs quick cash he buys their land then rents it back to them.

He’s 5th or 6th gen on that farm I think(he just turned 80) so no doubt his ancestors were just the biggest bastards in the valley in the first place. There’s stories from other tenants on the farm of several drawers filled to the brim with cash in the kitchen and all sorts of shading dealings. People behind on the rent for their workshops can expect a couple of Jersery barriers or bales of silage in front of their door.
He had his gun license taken away a few years back for threatening a lorry driver who turned up out of hours by mistake. His sons are both hedge fund bros but his eldest(late 40s I guess) at least dabbles in running the farm.
Rumour is when he carks it they’ll keep the farmyard and workshop units and flog the land for housing. There’s a lot of unused polytunnels and new, empty barns dotted across his land which he puts up at it sets planning precedent and can get change of use for housing further down the line(it’s how he built his sons houses), he’s definitely played the long game.

Fuckers like him need to be taxed into the ground. He’s gamed the system his whole life and uses any opportunity to tell you so. He’s pissed about the winter fuel payment as he uses it for a nice bottle of scotch for Xmas every year.

His dogs are really nice though.

Lots of red faces and Schöffel jackets at Waterloo station this evening

They can't build a house. Unless Dominic Cummings is in your family

This is who they are targeting, but then how did the duke of Westminster get away with such evasion.

Agree that this is bad policy. Land prices have soared, currently nearly 10k per acre if you're anywhere down south.

Part of the reason they're soaring is because of this exemption though.

Land isn't just valuable as a farming asset and the revenues it creates, it's also become valuable as somewhere to park money and then pass on to your descendants tax free.

The policy isn't perfect and needs some tweaking on eligibility I'd say but leaving things as they are also isn't great.

The farmers I know are usually tied tenants, or tenants.

Remember there are many many ways to mitigate this FFS.

I would like to put my hand up and say with pride that I frequently ride my bike across dyson land on designated footpaths that are all blocked off and gated.

It's interesting to see how this plays out in discussions and in justifying such "blunt instrument" taxes to the public. There clearly are some rich cunts (by which I mean people who are both rich and cunty) who this tax should legitimately clobber both for financial and moral reasons. When it's pointed out that there's going to be a bit of collateral damage and that people who are neither rich nor cunty are going to get clobbered in exactly the same way then a few tactics emerge:

1 - well they are all rich really (ignoring subtleties like assets vs. income)
2 - well yes, but there's not many of those non-rich, non-cunty people who'll be affected so they don't matter (and they're not important politically)
3 - but look how incredibly cunty the undeniably rich cunts are! Any amount of collateral damage is worth it if we can get one over on them.

Are the Welly boots in central London to help him wade through the heaps of shit that he spouts.

These are the cunts round our way (plus Saudi princes). There should be exemptions or discounts where the land can be shown to be productive farmland.

Or maybe the 10 year window can be more like student loans and if the land is farmed over those 10 years the iht gets reduced further.

Anything owned by a land hoarding company can be taxed to fuck.

I worry this is all part of labours plans to build more houses by having the land sold off rather than being concerned with food security

Feels like there’s way more revenue to be had taxing gambling and massive corporations