Labour's attacking the countryside - again

WHAT is it about Labour and the countryside?

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The Government owes its election victory to taking around 100 seats officially considered 'rural' at the last election.Without them it would not have won a majority. Yet it threw away a great deal of that support with the cruel and ill-considered family farm tax and is increasing the damage with the Animal Welfare Bill that looks like a further attack on rural minorities.

The Chancellor's scrapping of the 100% inheritance tax relief on family farms, in her first Budget, prompted massive protests by farmers. They feared the cost of inheritance taxes would force the breakup of thousands of family holdings - and it took almost 18 months for a partial climb down earlier this month which, while welcome, has done nothing to rebuild trust between many rural dwellers and Keir Starmer's Government.

While the proposals in the Animal Welfare Bill, slipped out just before Christmas, will not attract the same level of antagonism, many of its measures including the proposed ban on trail hunting - demonstrate for many another attack on the countryside. It's a depressingly familiar pattern for a party that fails to understand rural voters and opts for measures that lack merit, either socially or economically, yet do significant political damage.