Never has Whitehall seen so much tweed: more than 10,000 farmers, and a few tractors, turned up at Parliament yesterday
WALTER CRONXITE, political editor, on a new unwitting subject for a sharp parliamentary pen
The last time a national newspaper dismissed a public figure as a “turnip”, Graham Taylor’s days as England football manager were numbered.
Yesterday, it was Steve Reed OBE, the townie MP for Streatham and Croydon North, who was given the turnip treatment, this time not by The S*n, but by the gently incisive pen (or laptop) of Guardian parliamentary sketchwriter, John Crace.
It is Crace who has charted, with much mirth, the roller-coaster parliamentary career of Chris Philp, or “the nose in search of a bum”.
Now, as if having 10,000 farmers descend on Parliament Square baying for your blood was not bad enough, Reed has Crace on his case. Reed “won the turnip for his flailing defence of inheritance tax changes”, the standfirst to Crace’s dissection stated.
The farmers… well, billionaires and millionaires such as James Dyson, Jeremy Clarkson, Andrew Lloyd-Webber and the owner of the newspaper that in the 1930s backed Hitler, plus Nigel Farridge, have worked themselves up into a froth of indignation that a stonking great tax loophole has been closed, and that they might actually have to pay some tax on their really massive farms.
Crace on his case: the Grauniad’s parliamentary sketch web page last night
The inheritance tax measure, confirmed in the Budget at the start of the month, is likely to affect 4% of farmers, the government reckons. The National Farmers Union says otherwise.
Clarkson was quoted in his own newspaper as admitting he had bought his vast acreage in the Cotswolds specifically to dodge inheritance tax, but is now a poster boy for a campaign against a tax measure which sees farmers paying half the rate of inheritance tax that other property owners face. And even then, it is only on farms worth more than £1million – or £2million for couples.
Croydon South MP and shadow home secretary Philp – a senior politician who for reasons he fails to explain has never published his own tax returns – also popped up at the Whitehall demo, which delayed ambulances on their way to hospital and hard-working people on their way to work, and where barriers were destroyed by farmers driving tractors.
On this occasion, Philp escaped the attentions of Crace.
Nose in search of a bum: there isn’t a bandwagon that selfie-ing Croydon South MP Chris Philp won’t jump aboard
“It was a very civilised protest,” Crace wrote in The Grauniad. “The sort of protest you might expect from roughly 10,000 asset-rich, cash-poor millionaire farmers from all over the country… ‘What do we want? To not pay inheritance tax on our farms’. It had a ring.
“Whitehall has probably never seen so much tweed. Nigel Farage was out there looking like Mr Toad. Flat cap, pristine Barbour jacket, mustard trousers and green wellies. He never can resist a chance to cosplay… Nige is always willing to piggyback on other people’s grievances. Perhaps he might first like to explain why Brexit has hit farmers so hard.”
This was not a politically biased report. “Farmers tend to believe they have been screwed over by both the Tories and Labour,” Crace wrote, accurately.
Crace not only encountered the protestors, he also used his lobby pass to step inside the Palace of Westminster for a select committee hearing which, bad timing for Reed, was on rural affairs. Reed is the environment, farming and rural affairs secretary, which is not a brief to which he is obviously suited. Or booted.
“Central London blocked for a protest on your watch is never a good look,” Crace wrote. “And his afternoon was about to get a whole lot worse as he was due to make his first appearance before the DEFRA select committee.
“His first mistake was to arrive early and allow himself to be engaged in conversation with David Barton, a livestock farmer from Gloucestershire. Fair to say, Barton is one of many who think the government has got its maths wrong and that far more farmers will be caught under the new rules than had been predicted. Including Barton himself.
“‘Are you sure?’ said Reed. ‘You could always give it to your son.’ This was to prove to be a consistent theme throughout the afternoon. Reed would start by saying why the new tax measures had been necessary, only to then give suggestions on how the tax could be avoided. It was as if Steve had a split personality. Part cabinet minister, part moonlighting independent financial adviser.
“Even so, this cut no ice with Barton. Where was he supposed to live if he gave the farm to his son? Who knows? There must be an outbuilding somewhere…
“… Luckily for Steve, he got bailed out by an usher telling him the committee was about to start. He dashed in, flanked by two entirely mute DEFRA officials. Out of the frying pan.”
Out of his depth: Steve Reed has been accused of not understanding rural affairs
Crace then nailed the uneasy situation for Reed, who after 12 years as MP for Croydon North, since July seems to spend all his time in Streatham.
“The thing is, Reed’s heart just isn’t in the job. He never wanted to be DEFRA secretary. He represents Streatham and Croydon and has almost no interest in the countryside. He really fancied the justice brief.
“So he merely goes through the motions. Never really saying anything that suggests engagement. Or deep knowledge. There’s no malice here. He means well. But he’s nobody’s champion…”
Crace proceeded to outline some of the select committee’s questioning. “Round about now, you could see Steve’s head beginning to go down. Whatever the truth, the government had lost control of the narrative on this. None of this had been his idea. It had all been dumped on him by the Treasury at the last minute. All over a measly £500million. It would have been better if Rachel Reeves could just back down a bit. Show a bit of flexibility and raise the threshold to £5million. Get the farmers off his back.
“He was sick of telling the farmers they didn’t know what they were doing. Sick of being a loyal apparatchik.”
You have to wonder what the “brains” in the Downing Street organisation, Morgan McSweeney, Reed’s old pal from their Lambeth Council days, is making of all this.
More Reed: Minister Reed attended unminuted meetings with water bosses
Read more: ‘I don’t think it’s helpful you ask questions like this’ squirms MP Reed
Read more: MP Reed’s farming cuts get Keir barred from Clarkson’s pub
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
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“So he merely goes through the motions. Never really saying anything that suggests engagement. Or deep knowledge. … But he’s nobody’s champion…”
He might have said about most ministers ever.
The £5m would have been a masterstroke.
I have (a few) farmers (dairy Devon, arable Kent) in my family who skinted themselves to buy (not inherit) their farms. The land is worth a fortune, but the living is meagre and this will hurt their families.
£5m would take the dairy folk clear, but not necessarily the arable; but it would mitigate it.
At £2m, they’re both clobbered and will probably have to sell up in the event.
The irony is, of course, that this measure may well serve the “billionaires and millionaires such as James Dyson, Jeremy Clarkson, Andrew Lloyd-Webber and the owner of the newspaper that in the 1930s backed Hitler…” and the rest of the agrorapists as they will mop up these smaller holdings, corporatise them and then fuck the Government and us with offshoring, higher prices etc etc.
The measure may be intended to serve the billionaires and millionaires such as James Dyson.
Take Dyson: 14,000ha of land and a £500m valuation. He won’t ever pay meaningful tax on that.
Britain’s biggest farmer: National Trust and National Trust For Scotland. 800,000 acres between them, and NT’s revenue is £680m p.a. They won’t ever pay meaningful tax on that.
Largest individual private landowner in the UK: Anders Holch Povlsen (218,364 acres). Danish guy who owns clothing chain Bestseller and has a net worth estimated at about £9.2bn. He won’t ever pay meaningful tax on his farms.
Water company United Utilities has 141,000 acres, mostly in the north west. It’s never going pay meaningful tax on its farming interests.
There’s been a trend in Government – Tory and Labour – the past 30 years to try to corporatise (they would say professionalise) every small to middling business in every sector through either tax or regulation.
They’re not against renting, for instance, per se, they just would prefer the rental sector to be run by Lloyds Bank, L&G or John Lewis.
They’re not against farming or farmers, per se, they just would prefer agriculture to be owned and run by billionaires, multinationals and offshores.
Financial services the same. High street brokers and IFAs all gone, and agglomerated into monsters that can’t be trusted not to serve their own interests first.
It goes on and on and on and is testament to the success of lobbying.
If you want get anything done, you have get yourself into drinks on the terrace. It’s the only apparent way and going after smaller farms is probably just another example.
In this Government, we have simply changed from the mesmorisingly useless to the venally incompetent.
All that said, the self-serving Jeremy ‘death duties’ Clarkson and Farridge can stuff themselves too.
It’s not surprising that fence-straddling Starmer’s government is running into so much trouble. The only people the mealy-mouthed Toolmaker’s Son and his starry-eyed disciples are prepared to attack are Labour Party members who happen to be capable of thinking and speaking for themselves and/or anti-racist, socialist or trade unionists
Every house down my road is worth at least £500,000. The inheritance tax base threshold for townies is £325,000. No idea what the farmers are moaning about.
Agriculture survived the Enclosure Acts & the Swing Riots. I’m sure it will survive a change in IHT.
My ancestors were agricultural labourers (actually everyone’s were if you go back far enough). They never owned a farm – it wouldn’t have been a realistic ambition. It isn’t actually necessary to own land to work in agriculture. Who owns them now is of little interest to me.
The whole argument too relies on the vision of a farm as an indivisible asset – if you have more than 1 child, how does that work? The idea that farming knowledge has to be “passed down” and can’t be learnt…? And the idea that all farmers’ children want to continue in the business (statistically unlikely since the Industrial Revolution)?
Perhaps they could campaign for farms to become indivisible assets rather than a change in the tax regime? And if all farms are handed on to offspring, that raises the question of where social mobility comes from.
The farmers protest was not the most ethnically diverse that I’ve ever seen … Still, that’s “preserving a way of life” for you. I very much enjoyed the author’s attempt to balance his dislike of Mr Reed with his dislike of Mr Clarkson. An invidious dilemma for him.