Reacting to the news | Spivey’s sporadic ranting!

[@Mostirrelevant]

Analyses of some passages would be wonderful as well, like theme analyses of some works, controversial passages or less ones, the most famous ones... It is much more debatable and commentable, and I think it would be great. I would love to do it myself, but I am awful presenter

[@vesch5083]

I just finished Timothy Snyder's book On Tyranny, and in it he recommends returning to print news articles and books and to step away from online content. The next thing I see is Mr. Joe discussing a print newspaper

[@JoeSpivey02]

Just as it was foretold in the prophecies!

[@qamarqammar7629]

Ok then I'll take the bait. According to Guy Shrubsole 0.36% of the population owns two thirds of the land in the UK. Vast tracts including farmland are owned by multi-million dollar corporations. And while its true that some of the "loudest" complainers are ginormous landholders, there are small landowners who do actual farming who are going to be hurt by this. If they are forced to sell that land it is those same multi-millionaires who will acquire it. As more and more land, water and air rights are acquired up by corporate interests we need to protect smaller businesses and landowners - the ones who are growing the food we eat and protecting the land. I grew up near Lancaster in the US where the Amish own large tracts of what is some of the most valuable land in the country, not yet damaged by chemical waste, fracking or other toxins. Some of the protections they benefit from may not be entirely equitable on paper but the public service value of keeping farmland within farm families is worth it. Particularly as climate change makes less and less of our land viable.

[@JoeSpivey02]

All of those points are well put and I can hardly even begin to feign expertise on the topic. With that being said, we have been net importers of our food for at least a century, so any notions of Reeves and Starmer 'biting the hand that feeds them' does not comport with the statistics. If somebody places their estate in the hands of their child tomorrow and lives for another seven years then the inheritance tax is voided. I find it hard to sympathise with people who are the beneficiaries of MANY MANY supportive grants who simultaneously request preferential treatment at the other end of pecuniary policy! Reeves did a decent thing by setting the level at 20% and not 40%. If you have millions of pounds worth of land, and suddenly find that the business is no longer profitable, farmers are entitled to sell up and stick their trotters on a footstool for the rest of their days.

[@JoeSpivey02]

Plus, we've now left the European Union and with that the Common Agricultural Policy, which woefully prevents the helpful sums that were previously dealt out from Brussels. We all knew there would be economic consequences when we imposed economic sanctions on ourselves in June 2016

[@qamarqammar7629]

@@JoeSpivey02 Likewise I have no expertise here, as well as being from the US where we export quite a bit and import less, though increasingly we also import. "Farming" as a reality and a concept play a much larger role in ou national self-image than they do with you, so in the US we tend to side with farmers even as they increasingly become corporations. I wish I knew more about the specifics here - both the tax laws and the land values. But millions of pounds of land to me seems too vague when land prices are increasingly inflated as if they were NYC studio apartments. As you point out your farmers have also lost many protections the EU would have afforded them. But having worked on farms myself I can tell you that importing grain is one thing, but importing all your fresh produce is another - the farther it's going to be shipped the less it tastes or behaves as food once its sold. We are about to experience increased tariffs and trade barriers here ourselves and that is likely to change things. But as viable farmland shrinks everywhere I believe we are going to have to find a way to protect farming as a family tradition if we don't all want to be eating cloned soy.