this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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[–] echodot 4 points 18 hours ago

It's also a bit irrelevant anyway because there won't be another election until 2029 and by that point all the farmers will have seen that this whole thing was a nothing burger anyway. The ultra rich farmers ended up getting taxed, as they should always have, and everyone else ended up basically not been.

[–] Mr_Blott 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I might be wrong and would love to be corrected, but I'm under the impression that this tax change only affects the mega rich farmers

Are they pulling the wool over our eyes for their own gain?

[–] echodot 3 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

As per usual most of this is Labour's fault for being utterly awful at communication.

They only end up paying tax once their property is worth over 1 million pounds, but estate agents always overestimate the value of land. So they're being told the land is worth over 1 million pounds even though it obviously isn't.

What is somewhat unclear is how exactly the government would determine that their assets are worth over 1 million pounds. In order to know how much the land was actually worth they would actually have to sell it which obviously poses some difficulties.

[–] FarceOfWill@infosec.pub 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Pissing off farmers is more likely to gain support in rural communities than lose it.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 17 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

This.

I'm so tired of people on social media dismissing me (who has lived in extremely rural parts of Northumberland my entire life) as a clueless citydweller whenever I speak about:

  • This farmland IHT debate

  • Foxhunting

  • Using pesticides that don't mass-kill bees and other critical insects

  • People having a right to roam/being against landowners illegally blocking off public footpaths

  • The amount of land multimillionaires purposely keep barren and ecologically dead just so they can go grouse-shooting

There's this myth pushed predominantly by right wingers that everybody who doesn't live in a highly urbanised area agrees with farmers on everything.

[–] echodot 6 points 18 hours ago

They like to pretend that all farmers are gentlemen who wander around in tweed jackets and essentially live in the 1930s. Except I don't think that was true even in the 1930s.

[–] Streetlights@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Interesting take. Government policy should only favour loyal voters? Minority interest groups be damned?

[–] echodot 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Isn't that reality? If they are minority interest groups then they can be safely ignored.

It sucks but it's true.

Also I like the idea that multi millionaires are a minority group, I mean they are a minority group, sadly, but they're not really the kind of people you think about, when using the phrase minority group.

[–] HumanPenguin 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hardly a new take.

It's why labour did not care about the left post Corbyn.

Why the Tories ignore the poor. And both are happy to lump blame on immigrants or shaft the disabled.

FPTP makes it worse, as community size is more powerful. But PR would only improve it a little.

Larger, more loyal voting blocks will always have more power than smaller or overtly anti the current leadership.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Merely ignoring the poor would only be so bad (we're used to doing without) but politicians around the world win votes by exploiting irrational hatred of the poor and actively making things worse.

[–] HumanPenguin 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly, it's a slightly different cause and effect.

The wealthy keep taxes low by funding both media that concentrates on blaming the poor. And funding politicians that support the argument.

Same result, just different initial source. Think the old cartoon with the monopoly man sat at a table with a huge pile of cookies. Another guy with one cookie and a third with none.

"Hey that guy wants to steal your cookie".

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I don't think you need propaganda. I think it's baked into people from birth to feel fear, disgust, etc. I think it's easy to misattribute those feelings as having an external source, blaming them on the poor, and allowing that to shape their opinions and values. It's surprising to me that we don't even have a word for "hatred of the poor" because I think it's pan-cultural, regardless of whether politicians or the wealthy exploit it or not. (Which of course they do, but they can only universally do so because the bias exists.)

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 points 22 hours ago

That would be a decline in political culture, we don't want that.