“What a fabulous jacket,” joshes the BBC reporter, as she does a puff-piece with Tory MP Victoria Atkins. “You must be frozen.” Fucking hell. The absolute state of the BBC in general and BBC news in particular. I once said I would defend the BBC to the death. If it carries on like this, it will soon be dead.
This took place at a small gathering of wealthy landowners – sorry, farmers – in London today, who upset that buying up farm land in order to avoid tax, and I mean you, Jeremy Clarkson, have seen their tax dodging loophole closed. I am heartbroken. Play me the world’s smallest violin.
It is no surprise to see the media gushing over the plight of very rich landowners – sorry, farmers – when more than one in three children and a quarter of adults are living in poverty in the UK. That’s over 16 million people, 5.2 million of whom are children. But they don’t matter. Those wretched poor people don’t have lucrative TV, book and newspaper deals, like – oh, let’s think – and for some reason the media, especially the red top newspapers, don’t seem interested enough to report on them.
At least Atkins was on the right side of the debate over Brexit, which thanks to Boris Johnson’s post Brexit deal with the EU has been disastrous for farmers. I put it to you, on the simple grounds that it’s true, that her party has done more to help destroy British farming than a change to inheritance tax will won’t affect something like 87% of farmers. Instead of posturing in front of the cameras in her “fabulous jacket”, she might want to say sorry? But there’s a bigger issue here. The Tories left Britain in a terrible mess – see the poverty figures above – and someone has to pay a bit more to help the new government put the country back on its feet. That someone simply has to be the wealthiest people.
It is a matter of fact that the main beneficiaries of the Conservatives have been the better off and that thanks to David Cameron’s vicious austerity measures the poor have become poorer. People who never dreamed they would be unable to pay their bills and so have to use food banks are among us. I see them every week.
The 16 million people in poverty don’t go on demonstrations in London because they have other priorities and in all likelihood afford to, either. They don’t have client journalists on their side, congratulating them on their clothing and expressing concern at how cold they must be. In media land, they barely exist, except perhaps in an afterthought in the news, just after a story about a minor royal shaking hands with someone.
I’ve always quite liked Jeremy Clarkson. He’s a talented writer and TV performer and his excellent Amazon Prime show Clarkson’s Farm has brought home to many of us just what a tough life many farmers have, even very rich ones like Clarkson. But please spare me the bleeding heart stuff about a sensible measure in tough times that might help those with impossible lives a little less unbearable. Tonight, as ever, the news will reflect the lives of the rich and powerful and there will not be a single word about those poor and the helpless. The establishment looking after their own, as they always do.
Still, Victoria Atkins has a “fabulous jacket”, which you expect someone privately educated and part of the Oxbridge mafia to be able to afford, so that’s all right, then. I see people every week who sadly don’t have fabulous jackets or anything fabulous at all.
Sure, we need to support British farming but this inheritance tax malarkey is little to do with farming and much more to do with tax dodging. You will not see or hear a great deal in the media other than gushing over rich landowners, some of whom have lucrative media careers, too.
Behind the headlines lurks an epidemic of poverty and, yes, that includes rural poverty, too. But this protest today isn’t about poor people: it’s about the better off. And the very people who fucked over farmers in the first place are the Conservative party and indeed many of the farmers themselves who helped bring about the self-harm that was and will always be Brexit. Remember that when you next see a compliant BBC poodle congratulating a senior Tory on her choice of clothing.
And finally …
Following the changes announced in the budget, here’s how it affects you:
- Tax due if parents hand on £3m house: £940k
- Tax due if parents hand on a £3m farm: £0
Yes. After the changes.
