Keir Starmer's time is up

[Sue]

There was a woman on R4 earlier who was talking about a farmer who'd told her he didn't see any other option but to take his own life before this kicked in so his family wouldn't have to pay inheritance tax.

I mean I'm sorry he feels like that but seriously..?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The sort of people able to pass £3m+ to their offspring?

As iona points out, they're passing on a farm whose assets might be valued at something like that but if they are to keep the farm together, they don't have any of that as cash at all and they don't necessarily have a big income either.

Tax them to fuck if they sell up. That's how to do it equitably.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Aye and like I said a few posts back, the inheritance tax thing is getting a lot of attention atm but it's far from the only reason farmers are pissed off.

I feel like the job description for farmers is basically be pissed off unless you own half of East Anglia and have tenant farmers. I do have a lot of sympathy for them, it’s a hard job with no margins and it’s only going to get harder with the changing climate.

It’s just this tax isn’t particularly aimed at the bulk of them.

I’d also say for custodians of the land point that others make about them it would surely be nice if that meant they didn’t chase people off land quite so eagerly and forbid access

 

[_Russ_]

There was a woman on R4 earlier who was talking about a farmer who'd told her he didn't see any other option but to take his own life before this kicked in so his family wouldn't have to pay inheritance tax.

I mean I'm sorry he feels like that but seriously..?

Radio 4 has been broadcasting pure pro- gentelman farmer shite the last couple of days

 

[Serene]

There was a woman on R4 earlier who was talking about a farmer who'd told her he didn't see any other option but to take his own life before this kicked in so his family wouldn't have to pay inheritance tax.

I mean I'm sorry he feels like that but seriously..?

It shows the extent of the greed of the rich.

 

[PR1Berske]

How the Guardian is covering this:

Keir Starmer has denied that he is mounting a class war by targeting wealthy landowners and private schools, after the head of the National Farmers’ Union accused the government of an extraordinary “betrayal” over inheritance tax changes.

In an escalating war of words between food producers and ministers, the NFU president, Tom Bradshaw, called the government’s budget measures a “stab in the back”, after the sector had been previously told that taxes such as agricultural property relief (APR) would not be changed. He was addressing hundreds of farmers who had travelled to London to lobby their local MPs.


Starmer told reporters at the G20 in Rio de Janeiro that the government was taking a “balanced approach” to fund public services and called on farmers to think about the money needed for schools and hospitals in rural communities.

Asked if he was mounting a class war on the wealthiest, Starmer told Sky: “It isn’t at all what we’re doing. It’s a balanced approach. We have to fill a black hole which was left by the last government.”

In London, Bradshaw told a room of about 600 farmers: “I don’t think I have ever seen the industry this angry, this disillusioned, this upset.”

He described the budget measures as a “shocking policy, built on bad data, and launched with no consultation with anybody that understands”.

Bradshaw was applauded by farmers as he commented on the “human impact of this policy” and warned that government measures including changes to national insurance contributions, coupled with a competitive retail environment, would push up food prices.

 

[krtek a houby]

BBC news interviewed several farmers on the protest march. Obviously, it was only a handful but they sounded quite posh.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Yes. I listened to two young women interviewed on the Daily Politics at lunchtime. Like most workers, they can see their future disappearing down the drain. Their list of grievances were long and they see the Tax as a continuation of attacks on their jobs and lives. One worked for less than the minimum wage on the basis that one day she would own her families farm.

They did not appear to me to be "gammon ruddy faced Clarkson types" engaged in tax avoidance.

If they're in the bracket to be affected by this inheritance change then they've likely got assets enough to sell up and live on the proceeds forever without working another day.

How many workers can say that?

 

[ID47]

Ok. I think it does vary a lot depending on where you are. Rural Wales, where I grew up, is not like that at all.

Wrong type of agricultural land in most of Wales, not suitable for large crops. Too hilly and too stoney (sp?).

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If they're in the bracket to be affected by this inheritance change then they've likely got assets enough to sell up and live on the proceeds forever without working another day.

How many workers can say that?

And at the point where they do that, you hammer them with tax.

 

[SpookyFrank]

And at the point where they do that, you hammer them with tax.

Not at the point where they get given a huge asset for free? Like we do with everything else (or should, at any rate)

If the inheritance is seen as deferred remuneration, well that should still be taxed. Same as everyone else's pay is taxed.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Not at the point where they get given a huge asset for free?

Not necessarily, no. Not when that asset is a farm that they intend to work. In the case of a farm, the asset gives them an income when they work it. Tax that. If they sell all or part of it, tax that.

There are social contract issues here as well. The rest of us can and should expect farmers to farm in the way that society needs them to. In return, they get subsidies of various kinds to enable them to do that.

 

[burtabraham]

Not necessarily, no. Not when that asset is a farm that they intend to work. In the case of a farm, the asset gives them an income when they work it. Tax that. If they sell all or part of it, tax that.

There are social contract issues here as well. The rest of us can and should expect farmers to farm in the way that society needs them to. In return, they get subsidies of various kinds to enable them to do that.

Exactly. A farm may be an asset in the technical financial sense, but from a merely human perspective it's a massive headache that I'm quite glad someone else has to deal with and not me. "You've inherited a farm". "Gee, thanks. I've inherited 70 hour weeks, 4am starts, backbreaking labour, the second-highest workplace fatality rate, as well as continual stress over whether it will go under".

Tax the sale of a farm, fine. Tax land speculators, great! But give the farmers who feed us as many incentives as possible to continue doing so.

 

[brogdale]

Exactly. A farm may be an asset in the technical financial sense, but from a merely human perspective it's a massive headache that I'm quite glad someone else has to deal with and not me. "You've inherited a farm". "Gee, thanks. I've inherited 70 hour weeks and continual stress over whether it will go under".

Tax the sale of a farm, fine. Tax land speculators, great! But give the farmers who feed us as many incentives as possible to continue doing so.

Farmers do not feed us.

 

[burtabraham]

Farmers do not feed us.

 

[Elpenor]

You’d think Starmer would show more sympathy to farmers given his background in slaughtering ruminants

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Farmers do not feed us.

They kinda do. And food security is a big deal. As are environmental and welfare issues.

There are lots of things wrong with our food systems, many of those wrong things driven by the big supermarkets that control the supply chains. They need fixing. We need to farm much better than we currently are farming. And we need independent small farmers to do that.

Meanwhile here is Starmer with the CEO of Sainsbury's laying down the law on farm supply chains cosying up to those who are causing the problem.

 

[brogdale]

You’d think Starmer would show more sympathy to farmers given his background in slaughtering ruminants

And don't forget the field of donkeys.

 

[brogdale]

They kinda do. And food security is a big deal. As are environmental and welfare issues.

There are lots of things wrong with our food systems, many of those wrong things driven by the big supermarkets that control the supply chains. They need fixing. We need to farm much better than we currently are farming. And we need independent small farmers to do that.

They kinda don't; they cultivate foodstuffs for sale to retail corporations. Unless I shoplift, if I don't have the £, no farmer is gonna feed me.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Bus drivers don't drive us. Unless we fare dodge, no bus driver is gonna drive us.

 

[krtek a houby]

And don't forget the field of donkeys.

His father was a mule maker

 

[brogdale]

Bus drivers don't drive us. Unless we fare dodge, no bus driver is gonna drive us.

Nah, I think most bus drivers would say that they are a bus driver, not that they take us to our hospital appointment or some such. The farm bosses claims that "they put the food on our table" is arrant, emotive nonsense. They are businesses that sell wholesale to retail corporations.

 

[brogdale]

His father was a mule maker

Or did he actually own his own mule-making factory?

 

[krtek a houby]

Or did he actually own his own mule-making factory?

Closed down because it was a Keir and present danger

 

[brogdale]

Closed down because it was a Keir and present danger

enough

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Nah, I think most bus drivers would say that they are a bus driver, not that they take us to our hospital appointment or some such. The farm bosses claims that "they put the food on our table" is arrant, emotive nonsense. They are businesses that sell wholesale to retail corporations.

This is a bizarre and reductionist attitude. I think it is a good thing if people take pride in the idea that their work helps people.

Aren't you buying the capitalist line that we're all just alienated consumers? We don't have to think of ourselves like that.

 

[brogdale]

This is a bizarre and reductionist attitude. I think it is a good thing if people take pride in the idea that their work helps people.

Aren't you buying the capitalist line that we're all just alienated consumers? We don't have to think of ourselves like that.

Blimey. I can see how it suits the perception of their industry and protest to mouth such meaningless tosh, but for people unwilling to pay tax it's quite a stretch to believe that they do what they do to "help people".

 

[brogdale]

I mean what is significant is that such a right-wing cohort seem so anxious to ditch a core notion of the capitalist system that they seek to preserve.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Blimey. I can see how it suits the perception of their industry and protest to mouth such meaningless tosh, but for people unwilling to pay tax it's quite a stretch to believe that they do what they do to "help people".

Whereas you're mouthing internalised neoliberal concepts.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I mean what is significant is that such a right-wing cohort seem so anxious to ditch a core notion of the capitalist system that they seek to preserve.

So what? We have to start talking like Smith?