Kemi Badenoch Powell

While I agree with you... We've got to be careful as we're well down a slippery slope when it comes to people being completely unfit for public office attaining the top position. Not just Trump overseas, but we've had Cameron, May and Sunak who were all out of their depth and/or lightweight. Then the standouts of Johnson and Truss who were on another level as being unsuitable.

There is a world where Badenoch could be PM. And we shouldn't write that off. She should get better (I mean Corbyn aside, I've not seen anyone as out of touch at PMQs so its hard to imagine her getting any worse) and the super right wing press will paint her ineptness and numerous gaffes in a completely different light to whatever Starmer does. And only a small percentage watch PMQ's.

So as amusing as it is on one level... Its still deeply concerning she's in the picture given the UK electorates previous decisions we're still all paying the price for.

 

The reality is that I would say pretty much every MP is detached from reality and watching clips of them is like a bun fight - with us - the taxpayers - left sucking up what they impose. What grinds my gears is every government that comes in blames the previous government , but the outgoing government come up with ideas that they had had the opportunity to implement but didn't.

Labour need to stand by their decisions and stop finger pointing as this is on their watch and they are accountable for every single decision they make - there is only a certain amount of time they can keep trotting out the same old lines as to why they've done xyz.

What I do find interesting is that there has been very little mention (But granted I havent read every single post of every single thread), but McTernan's (Ex adviser to Tony Blair) comments about doing to farmers as to what Thatcher did to miners hasn't been mentioned on here - I would hazard a guess that if KB had said that the board would go into meltdown. This government have gone after pretty much every demographic in society within 4 months of being in office - students, middle england, pensioners, business owners, private schools - and were the polling booths to open tomorrow for a new government - it is highly likely you wouldn't be seeing Keir Starmer as PM.

 

Excuse me if I don't feel sorry for farmers who have assets worth more than one million pounds not being exempt from Inheritance Tax. Diddums.

And going after wnkers like Clarkson - who has tried to be clever by hiding his wealth by buying up land - perfect.

If you've got the wealth, you pay the tax.

 

I think to a degree you miss the point. Farmers dont make megabucks from farming because their margins are squeezed by supermarkets , volatility of fertiliser and grain prices etc. Alot are asset rich and cash poor - the only way for some of them to pay the IHT bill is to sell some of their land - which would probably get on average about £12000 an acre. They might have to sell off 1/10th of the farm to pay the IHT bill - this then means they have less land to work and resulting in less profit.

What you forget with Clarkson is that he has bought a farm with money he was taxed on, and probably paid an eyewatering amount of stamp duty on the transaction in the first place, so is hardly hiding it. So he has paid the tax! His earnings were reportedly £10m a year - that figure would incur tax / NI at around £4.7m

If you have worked hard all your life and made sacrifices to be successful and likely taken far greater risks, it shouldn't 'be the right' of a government to strip that away as you have likely paid more in tax in a small window of time than most tax payers pay in an entire working lifetime.

 

Yes ,John McTeenan that well known left wing Trotsky!!!! He was talking about small farmers who aren’t profitable and never will be but think they are entitled to be propped up via subsidies ( benefits) and shouldn’t be subject to the same tax rules that apply to everyone else

 

Similar to those on unemployment benefits who cant get a job in the area they're skilled in but could get a job to tide them over? Or someone that refuses to do more than 16 hours a week (or only does 6 hours officially on the books - the rest being under the counter) as it would affect their benefit entitlement? Do we do something hard line with these people while we're at it?

 

Where have you been for the last 40yrs , more has been spent on harassing benefit claimants than anything chucked at farmer subsidy fraud .

 

There's more to it than meets the eye, the problem is this appears to have been fetched in by people who really don't know what's going on. This and the latter Conservative Govts are focused on housebuilding, the snag is they only see the problem through a London centric lens...up north we have loads of brownfield sites which most people would agree should be utilised before we take Greenbelt, in the south it's no problem where houses start at megabucks and developers are guaranteed to make a fortune, however up here the prices are so low they often claim that making the brownfield land safe before building is too expensive to make the required profits... particularly with the expected Section 106 contribution to the Council. Because of this a lot of land gets passed for building but does not get built on ( unless the S106 contribution is removed)
This leaves Councils unable to meet the ridiculous new Govt targets that are a real pressure...the developers then target Greenbelt sites ( which require no mitigation work and are cheap to build on) knowing that Councils need to meet the Govt target and are more likely to find ways to make it happen.
The knock on effect from this is that speculators are pushing up the price of agricultural land ( formerly worth peanuts compare to building land) so that a small farm can easily be valued now at a million....but the farm cannot produce the revenue that you would imagine a million pound farm would, purely because of the over valuation of the land...Because the revenue is relatively low a lot of inheritors will find the tax difficult to find.
It really needs another look or we could end up with the small diverse farms, the ones growing diverse crops and keeping breeds of animal that big corporations don't want, sold off to big companies, land speculators ,or tos**rs like Clarkson and his ilk.

 

There's more money being thrown at the public sector but unfortunately for the private sector doesnt mean the services improve - the reds can go out and sign 9 players at £10 million each - its irrelevant if you sign the wrong players! The point being, you can spend money on harassing them , but it doesn't mean they stop claiming

In my opinion this comes down to 1 thing - building land will be more readily available!!

 

Great if you want a house in the country....not so great if you believe in preserving flora and fauna, green spaces and wildlife habitats at a time when the planet itself is under threat.

 

You’re definitely right about the house in the country.

Do a search for farm land on Zoopla or Rightmove. There are so many farms that have been sold off the last few decades and the main issue comes down to supermarket power. There are so many farms doing Airbnb lets too to derive further incomes.

But to roll it back further, farmland was originally wild land. We’re now going through the cycle of wild to farm to scrub to concrete. Further reducing our wildlife and reducing our wild habitat.

Man is always the problem. And as we attempt to solve the problems we’ve created, we simply create more problems and its nature that pays.

 

We had a discussion on here about the IHT on farms - and there are at least a couple of routes they can use to minimize any IHT payments. They could give the farm to their children and have life insurance to cover the IHT that last for 7 years. They could sign the farm over to a company and continue as employees. There are other options.

If I own a house with a garage that I turn into a workshop for my business worth £500k, I pay inheritance tax. If I own a farm worth £1.5m, I pay none.

 

I disagree. If you're rich a pound is worth less to you than it is to someone poorer. They can and should contribute more.

Plus Clarkson bought the farm to avoid the inheritance tax he would otherwise have had to pay. Zero sympathy.