Labour’s farm tax makes no sense

Amid the furore over Lord Alli’s contributions to Lady Starmer’s wardrobe the new environment secretary, Steve Reed, was able to stay under the radar. Most of us weren’t aware that he had been schmoozing his way around British farms during the election campaign wearing brand new, top of the range Le Chameau wellies – also apparently gifted by the ubiquitous Lord Alli. At the time Reed was promising that Labour had no intention of changing Agricultural Property Relief. In fact, responding to an accusation by his Tory opponent, Steve Barclay, he dismissed it as ‘desperate nonsense’.

So you can imagine the anger on British farms this morning after Rachel Reeves not only changed APR but also Business Property Relief (BPR). Tempers were further inflamed as it became apparent from social media posts that in the run-up to the Budget the mendacious Reed was chirruping, ‘Farmers are going to have to learn to do more with less’, presumably to manage our expectations.