
These phones used to work!!
Phone update. In 1952 when father commenced farming in his own right, we had a telephone that worked and the number was Winterslow 262. It was a party line and so we had to share it with the farm up the road. When we needed to speak with someone other than a Winterslow number, we dialled 0 for the switchboard and magically we were connected.
The point I am making, is that the phones worked in those days.Today having been forced to change from analogue to digital, the phones only work when there is sufficient broadband signal to allow the phone to work, roughly 80% of the time. This is called progress, we could sue our phone company for breach of contract, but I just don’t have the time and energy to deal with a complete bunch of idiots, who have no intention of improving the situation. Net result is that we are going to have to rely on Starlink to make our phones work, until they give us a fibre connection, that could be years away, so much for the Chancellors ‘Going for growth’.
I have just read, that the Governments Climate Change Committee has just decided, that to meet our climate change targets this country needs to reduce its meat and dairy consumption by 50% by 2050. Instead of eating meat and dairy, you will all need to eat more brussels sprouts, leeks, soya, pasta, rice, rhubarb and probably grass if the civil servants have their way. I don’t seem to remember this little gem in the Labour manifesto, but I am sure it will be an absolute winner. I trust that we are also going to see a 50% reduction in air travel, car use, and a thousand other un-sustainable activities. If we need to make meat eating a little more sustainable can I suggest we bring back all the local slaughter houses that have been put out of business by EU red tape and the dictatorial attitude of supermarkets, then at least our cattle don’t have to travel hundreds of miles. Don’t get me wrong, we are quite happy to do our bit, provided everyone else does their bit as well. If we need to make drinking milk more sustainable, can I suggest we go back 50 years and use electric milk floats to deliver, glass reusable bottles with foil tops, delivering local milk to the local doorstep!!!
The Labour party, and Ms Reeves, have just declared war on the countryside and those that work in the countryside. In the most astonishing attack on the farming community, she has floated proposals that will make significant changes to Inheritance tax, and have ramifications for farming families for years to come. The changes have been made on the basis that there are few wealthy purchasers of land, using land purchase as a tax haven, and it had to be stopped. The threshold and starting point is proposed to be £1m, and it then becomes clear this has nothing to do with wealthy purchasers.
This is a nasty, vindictive, spiteful attack on the farming community, in an attempt to dismantle the family farm structure. Several ‘out of touch’ government spokespersons have tried to defend the Chancellor, and their ill informed dialogue was embarrassing. To suggest that 70% of farms will be unaffected at a threshold of £1m, means they have not the remotest idea as to what they are talking about, given that no one can earn a living on a ‘Farm’ valued at that price.
The Chancellors big objective is ‘Economic Growth’ in the next 5 years, this proposal is ‘Wholesale Destruction’. It is back to the drawing board on this one! The cost of the National Insurance Changes and the Minimum wages, will cost us thousands, but that’s for another day.