Malevolence, miscalculation or ignorance – a tractor tax is going to hurt the British countryside like nothing else

The first time I brought a girl home to meet my family, the occasion was derailed by a piglet that tumbled out of the Aga oven and stood wobbling and blinking on the kitchen carpet. open image in gallery Richard’s family tending to their land in the early 1950s Against this backdrop, Rachel Reeves’s changes to inheritance tax rules look like an existential blow that is so harsh, stark and sudden that it can only be motivated by malevolence, miscalculation or ignorance. These are not things known for inspiring rational responses in people, which partly explains why many farmers continue working when they’re losing money, or even when they could sell up and live off the investment. Privately, most farmers I’ve spoken to think that the margins of the really giant landowners like Dyson – who is Lincolnshire’s primary landowner, with 35,000 acres, and has seen his wealth soar by almost £7bn in the past year – mean they will be able to pay, and if they do, it will reduce the upward pressure on land prices and thereby rebalance the market. open image in gallery Richard’s brother, Guy, and the farm’s dog in the 1990s Even if you find it hard to sympathise with people whose balance sheets include six zero figures, it is worth thinking about the countryside itself.