Can Labour really afford to break yet another promise?

NO one wants to pay more tax, so it’s little wonder that a survey bought and paid for by the Country Land and Business Association, which represents 28,000 UK property-owners, farmers and rural businesses, should predict dire consequences if the Government presses ahead with plans to scrap inheritance tax relief on farm assets.

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It would be surprising if it didn’t; the CLA, after all, used to be called the Country Landowners’ Association and in 1910, three years after its foundation, had 1,000 members of whom a full 10% were MPs. It changed its name in 2001 in a not entirely successful effort to dispel the impression that it only stood for the interests of the landed gentry (its current president, for example, is Victoria, wife of Ferrers, 13th Baronet Vyvyan, whose family has held the vast Trelowarren estate in Cornwall for 600 years).