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Food Shortage Plan Being Drawn Up To Thwart A Farmers’ Strike
//A senior minister has revealed that plans are being drawn up to deal with food shortages if farmers go ahead with their threat to strike over the controversial family farm tax....Farmers are set to descend on London in their thousands on Tuesday to protest against plans to impose a 20 per cent inheritance tax on farms worth £1m or more. They have warned that the policy will destroy family farms across the country or see them broken up....But more worrying for the government are the plans by farmers to go on strike and stop food production to give ministers a taste of what it would be like if the UK food-producing sector were no longer operating.//
A grim prospect heralding a grim winter. When will the stockpiling begin?
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“Voting and supporting strikes WOW thats not very con like.”
I don’t know why you seem to be forecasting a cataclysmic outcome if farmers strike. One former Labour adviser, John McTernan, suggests that the UK does not need farmers and hopes the new government will do to them what Mrs Thatcher (in his words) did to the miners.
Anyway, I don’t actually see the farmers withdrawing their services as striking. Farmers run their own businesses and if they decide to withdraw their produce from the market that doesn’t really constitute a “strike”.
Businesses have to consider whether they are viable and meet the definition of a “going concern”. Those which will see tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds extracted from them, for no reason other than the owner has died, will have to seriously consider their future.
The average size of UK farms is around 200 acres. Farmland is valued at an average of around £10,000 per acre. That makes the value of the land alone £2m for an average sized farm. Add to that the value of the buildings and machinery and the farmer’s family is very quickly into a hefty IHT bill. This begins at £1.325m for farms which are owned by one person and passed on to a person other than a child or grandchild.
I was unfortunate enough to hear 5 minutes of James O’Brien on LBC this morning (I was waiting at the railway station to meet somebody). Needless to say, he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. He let his listeners believe that all farms valued under £3m would be exempt from the tax entirely (which is untrue) but then went on to cite an example of a farm valued at £3.5m which could take advantage of the full amount. He said that, upon the death of the owner the inheritors (who must be children or grandchildren to take advantage of the full relief – something else he didn’t make clear) would face a bill of “only” £100,000, which they can spread over ten years. So, he said, that was “only” £10k a year they had to find.
His naivety (or more likely ignorance) illustrates why people who live in Chiswick (which he prefers to call Brentford to enhance his socialist credibility) should not comment on farming.
For many farms, £10k a year is the difference between survival and going under. It is £10k they don’t have to invest in new machinery; £10k they don’t have to maintain farm buildings; £10k they don’t have to provide pay increases for their workers; £10k to make sure they themselves have a decent income.
And that’s the very minimum someone inheriting a small farm will have to find simply to maintain possession – and many will have to find a lot more than that.
Never mind. Only about 2,200 people have arrived in small boats since the budget. So it only needs 2,200 farmers' families to pay their £10k a year to keep them.
No political party will get my membership. There are two reasons for this:
1. I wouldn't want to be a member of a party that would accept me as a member.
2. None of them deserve my patronage.
That said, I have a confession that I did indeed join the Conservative Party a number of years ago. I had previously visited a popular resort in the South West to be disappointed that there was nowhere particularly nice to have an after-dinner digestif. However, the local Conservative Club had a very nice bar and lounge which I was able to sample courtesy of somebody with whom I was travelling who was a member.
Some years later I had occasion to visit the town again, this time with Mrs NJ, and remembered this. So a month or so before my trip I joined the Conservatives, solely so that we could use the club.
Alas to my horror I discovered that between my visits the club had acquired a new manger who had different ideas of what a Conservative Club should offer. Gone were he comfortable armchairs and sofas in the lounge, to be replaced by "utility" style more redolent of the austerity furnishings that were all tthat was available following WW2. The bar had been refitted to resemble a greasy spoon cafe and had been "restocked". Real Ale was no longer served and premium brandies and whiskies no longer available. But worst of all was the "music". Insead of some light background music there was now "musak" similar to that inflicted on supermarket customers.
I only paid the one brief visit and on my way out I noticed the "forthcoming events" poster which included a stand-up comedian, a "psychic nite", regular quiz nights and an Elton John tribute act.
I cut my membership card in two and sent it back to party HQ with a stiff letter of complaint. I never received a reply and that was my one and only flirtation with membership of a political party.
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