Farm Tax Raid Puts Britain’s Food Security at Risk, Says Tesco
Rachel Reeves’s tax raid on farmers is putting Britain’s food security at risk and must be paused, Tesco has warned, as the backlash to the controversial policy that has brought farmers to the streets mounts. The Telegraph has more.
Britain’s biggest supermarket said the Chancellor should halt the introduction of inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1 million in order to safeguard British agriculture.
Ashwin Prasad, Tesco’s Chief Commercial Officer, wrote in a blog: “This is not just a debate about individual policies – the UK’s future food security is at stake.”
Tesco was one of three major supermarkets to call for a rethink of the policy on Wednesday, with similar warnings issued by Aldi and Lidl in an unusual show of unity.
It came as the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the Government’s fiscal watchdog, suggested that farmers were likely to slash investment because of the tax raid and cast doubt on how much money would be raised.
Tesco, Aldi and Lidl collectively represent around 45% of the British grocery market and their warnings about the impact of Labour’s tax raid significantly raises pressure on the Government.
Asda and Morrisons have already backed farmers in the row. Sainsbury’s has urged Ministers to “listen to the concerns of farmers about the tax changes”.
Under plans announced by the Chancellor in her Budget last year, farms worth more than £1 million will be liable for 20% inheritance tax from April 2026. Agricultural businesses were previously exempt from death taxes.
The policy has provoked a huge backlash from farmers, who claim it will force them to sell off or shut down businesses. Tractors descended on Westminster in November in protest over the tax raid.
Mr Prasad said Tesco “fully understood” farmers’ concerns and said they “desperately need more certainty”.
He said: “After years of policy change, it has been harder than ever for them to plan ahead or to invest in their farms. It’s why we’ll be supporting the National Farmers Union’s calls for a pause in the implementation of the policy, while a full consultation is carried out.”
In a further blow for Ms Reeves, the OBR said there is a risk that the amount raised by the tax will fade over time as landowners adapt following its introduction in April next year – although older farmers would be unable to escape the consequences.
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Isn’t it obvious that every policy on every level is about inducing scarcity, poverty and ultimately a culling of useless eaters. You could be there all day listing the ways in which they are doing this.
Don’t forget the senseless slaughter of millions of farm animals in 2001 over ‘Foot & Mouth disease. Most of the livestock was healthy. But they left other cloven footed animals alone, and in doing so, exposed ulterior motives.
You think the politicians in government are very clever people, craftily planning evil policies to induce ‘scarcity, poverty and ultimately a culling of useless eaters’.
I think the politicians in government are very stupid, haven’t got a clue what they’re doing, blind to the unintended consequences of their policies, and at this rate will be out of power in four years, with the likelihood of Reform and/or a reformed Conservative party coming to power instead.
To me the distinction is irrelevant, whether they are stupid or malign. The point is that their stupidity has been put there and prevails with them at the top despite the fact that they are perhaps the least amongst us. Party politics is best described as show-business for ugly people. Attention seeking prats. But they didn’t get where they are because we wanted them to be there. They got there because they system has become so debased that only such ugly and stunted characters would feel at home in the cesspool. This is the way neoliberal systems operate and you can see it all over the world.
Can you please name me a small handful of those you consider the stupidest and we’ll have a look at their academic achievements which are usually considered a measure of stupidity or otherwise. I have met stupid people – they are usually poor and their lives are often a mess, they are not very articulate and struggle to understand abstract concepts, don’t do detail. I’ve never met a stupid person who was rich, powerful and successful. I bet you a box of Smarties that every Cabinet member has an IQ well above the national average. Obtuse maybe, stupid no.
My Lib Dem MP, Olly Glover, to whom I wrote on Monday asking him not to support the Climate & Nature Bill, replied with a raft of ecowaffle containing this immortal phrase. As background, his constituency includes the former Didcot A power station, closed many years ago:
”Britain is heavily dependant on oil, gas and COAL”
Our last coal fired power station closed in September 2024.
He went on to spout about renewable energy and the Green Revolution, perhaps without checking that on this cold grey January day the UK received about 1% of its electricity from renewables. I have asked him to show me the plan for how that 1% becomes 100%
Yes, he’s a Cambridge history graduate, well and truly out of his depth in the energy sector, but dragged along by the LibDem whips to consign our industries and lifestyles to the dustbin
i offered to give him a lesson in renewable finance and strategy, and am waiting for a response
Not wishing to be gratuitously rude, words fail me. But I’d happily help to haul the tumbrels that we’ll need to rid ourselves of these craven idiots
Olly Glover, Candidate Number 1
Cambridge – the home of the traitors – Burgess, Mclean Philby – Nick Clegg
Let’s hope their 100% support for this bill marks the end of the Lib Dems once and for all.
They’ve been getting away with the moderate “none of the above” party for far too long.
I got a D in my History A level, have no degree and am not nearly clever enough or studious enough to get into Cambridge. It’s completely implausible that he is intellectually challenged. Lazy, dogmatic, uncaring about consequences, dishonest, self-serving, yes.
Ditto Miliband (Oxford), who has Maths, Further Maths, and Physics A Levels. He could understand the ruinous logic and numbers behind renewable energy if he chose to, but……
He’s not “stupid” or an “idiot”. The “ruinous logic” is plain to see and he very well knows this, in my opinion. He could not possibly not know it.
They are in a cult-like trance. Consider Heaven’s Gate, a situation in which some highly intelligent people actually believed they were going to travel to the far reaches of the universe in a spaceship hidden within the tail of a comet.
Dogma and repetition of a mantra or a set of actions can be very powerful.
See also GroupThink.
I’m sure with some there’s an element of that but I think most of them have had to be pretty cynical to climb greasy pole.
“They are in a cult-like trance.”
More likely in a cult’s pocket.
I wrote ‘cult.’
It is possible to be academically clever, but utterly stupid and naive in real life.
I could not count the number of people I have experienced who were, on paper, absolute whizz-kids. Put them into a situation where they had to actually apply all that grey matter outside an exam paper and they were totally useless.
In the engineering world, there are legions of MEng/CEng and even PhD qualified persons who would struggle to put air into a bike tyre.
It depends what they are asked to apply it to. Their dogmatism might lead them down apparently stupid paths, but I think senior politicians are hard-headed realists who always have an eye on what they can get away with, what’s plausible, how far they can push things. To operate like that I think you have to know exactly how far you are distorting the truth. I don’t think you get to be in the Cabinet by being naive.
Explain MSPs then.
To add, I have seen multiple instances in which highly-paid, chartered civil engineers did not have a clue what to do, even within their core discipline. They were academically clever, but practically stupid.
What are MSPs?
Members of the Scottish Parliament. Some of the stupidest, yet academically qualified people I can think of. You only have to hear them speak to know they’d be stumped by tinned food.
“Stumped by tinned food” – love that.
Lammy seems pretty steady, too.
You’re using a different sense of the word, ‘stupid’.
Do you think Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, and Angela Raynor are clever enough to mastermind an evil plan and craftily get away with it? Seriously!
I never said they had masterminded an evil plan. You called them stupid, I disagree.
Some make evil plans, others follow. ‘Twas ever thus.
stupid
/ˈstjuːpɪd/
adjective
Starmer does not greatly lack intelligence or common sense.
Surely you’re smart enough to understand that intelligent people can be stupid in a different sense of the word? Stupid can also mean incompetent and foolish, even if the person has an above average IQ. Have you ever heard of the Peter Principal? In bureaucracies people tend to be promoted to their level of incompetency. Starmer may have been quite a competent lawyer but he is an incompetent Prime Minister.
Public services are absolutely rammed with incompetents.
What are the comments about the plod running Prevent? Promoted way beyond his level of incompetence. In fact incompetence is rarely a factor affecting promotion in the Civil service and for those blessed with a mixture of silver tongue and incompetence there is virtually no ceiling.
Well intelligence is hard to define precisely and hard to measure with certainty, and it is multi faceted.
I am using the word intelligence in what I believe to be the normally understood sense.
Any apparent “incompetency” derives in their case not from a lack of intelligence but from a tendency to dogmatism, laziness, self serving, dishonesty, liking for power for its own sake, cowardice. The failings are moral, to do with character, not intellectual.
I think that above every other character trait they may possess, they are avaricious, ruthless, hubristic and conceited.
They say there is loyalty amongst thieves, but I do not think that maxim applies to these people. They are akin to rats, and will happily cannibalise one another when their own survival is threatened. Look at Blair or Hilary Clinton as exemplars of this. It is their strength, but also their weakness. They cannot trust one another, and must always be looking over their shoulders.
Was it Churchill who said “Those with the highest political aspiration should be excluded from pursuing it by virtue of that very fact” ?
Paraphrasing, of course.
Yes, if they are having their strings pulled and never have to miss a pay cheque or a pension contribution.
I disagree tof.
PhD in physics – eco nutter.
Senior micro-biologist – PCR test greatest thing since sliced bread.
GP – C1984 “vaccines” saved the world. All “vaccines” are wonderful.
Various teachers who all believe the Scamdemic was a real thing, the “vaccines” were saviours and Lockdowns were a gift from God – well they would wouldn’t they?
I could list others. So stupid, yes. Intelligent stupid maybe but still stupid.
Of course they’re not stupid. The problem is that they are sure we are.
Sadly they are in large measure correct
Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
They are professional liars. It’s part of the job.
How stupid would you have to be to choose a job that requires you to lie, to prefer excessive amounts of money to living an honest life?
It’s certainly an odd choice from where I stand, yet people throughout history choose to do so. It’s a bit like choosing to be a criminal (one that makes money, that is).
I suppose you could characterise that as a kind of stupidity, though I have just posted elsewhere I don’t think that is the generally understood sense of the word.
There has to be a showdown between these forces. There is nothing pure about our times or even our resistance. It has been psycho0logical warfare for over a hundred years but now it is on many levels simultaneously. Some of them are beyond human control, the Schuman resonances for example. Have you followed it? Can you seriously contend that it has no effect on you?
From bean to cup Labour —-s up
It is written in already in terms of the increases in commodity prices over the next few months due to climatic conditions. Canaries in the coalmine are chocolate and coffee and olive oil. The only way is up. What will you do just put up with this nonsense forever?
More good news for the ghastly, deplorable goon-squad in “Government” – the Stameristas just can’t put a foot right… then there is that certifiable lunatic Ed Minibrain… birds of a feather I suppose.
In a further blow for Ms Reeves, the OBR said there is a risk that the amount raised by the tax will fade over time as landowners adapt following its introduction in April next year – although older farmers would be unable to escape the consequences.
It was only going to raise enough money to fund the NHS for a couple of days which is mental when you consider the damage it will do.