Labour is taking revenge on farmers – just like it did with pensioners and private schools

Keir Starmer is brazenly trying to take money from people who don’t vote for his party and give it to people who do

20 November 2024 Daily Telegraph 

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In just 10 words, Tuesday’s front-page headline summed up everything that’s wrong with this Government. It read: “Farmers Must Pay Up for the NHS, says Rachel Reeves”. 

Well, of course. That was bound to be the excuse she fell back on. Because, in Labour’s eyes, “paying up for the NHS” isn’t merely about funding a public service. It’s a sacred and holy duty. An ancient, mystical rite. Listening to the Chancellor, you’d think she was the chief of some remote and primitive tribe, commanding them to make sacrifices to appease the gods. “In the name of Our NHS, each man must hand over his first-born child. If the gods are pleased, they may reduce hospital waiting lists from 7.57m to 7.56m.”

At any rate, I hope the public won’t be fooled. Because, whatever the Government may say, I don’t believe for a moment that its policy on family farms is really about “funding the NHS” – or “investing in our schools”, as the Chancellor has also claimed. I think that, in reality, the Government has another motivation. And it ties in with its similarly poisonous policies on winter fuel and school fees.

It’s revenge.

Put it like this. Isn’t it a peculiar coincidence that all three groups Labour is targeting here – farmers, pensioners and parents who send their children to independent schools – are ones which overwhelmingly vote Tory? 

That isn’t the only reason, however, that Labour might wish to pick on these particular groups. It’s cultural, too. Farmers, for example, represent everything the modern metropolitan Left hates. They’re rural. Old-fashioned. Patriotic. Oh, and even worse than voting Tory, most of them voted for Brexit, as well. So it’s about time they were served some payback, isn’t it?

As for pensioners, stripping them of their winter fuel payment is no doubt punishment for their numerous appalling crimes against millennial orthodoxy. Such as owning houses, expressing doubts about the wisdom of mass immigration, and just generally being Baby Boomers. 

All of which makes them almost as contemptible, in modern progressive eyes, as the third and final group. Left-wingers loathe parents who choose to send their children to independent schools – because they take this decision as a personal insult. “How dare you suggest that our wonderful state schools aren’t good enough for your precious, stuck-up brats! Anyway, the very existence of private education is unfair. Every child should have the same start in life. Even if it’s equally bad.”

As I say: funny that those three groups, in particular, should be singled out. But that’s not the only mysterious coincidence. Because, at the same time as the Government is fleecing those three groups, it’s awarding inflation-busting pay rises to public sector employees – who just happen to be the Labour party’s core support. 

Looking at the Government’s actions as a whole, therefore, a cynical person might be tempted to conclude that ministers actually have no interest in “balancing the books”, “fixing the foundations”, “driving economic growth”, or whatever other line they’ve decided to spin today. All they wish to do, quite simply, is to remove money from people who don’t vote for them, and give it to people who do.

If so, I very much doubt it will be a one-off. Because official figures published this week show that public sector productivity is falling. As if it weren’t already low enough.

So, no matter how great the sacrifices the chief orders us to make, you can be sure that the gods will soon be demanding more.