On Tuesday, farmers and tractors came to Whitehall to protest against the imposition by the government of inheritance tax on farms, cheered on by the right-wing former BBC TV Top Gear presenter, Jeremy Clarkson (sacked for punching a producer on the BBC team).

    He is now a "farmer", apparently - having joined other rich people in investing their money in agricultural land as a way of avoiding inheritance tax. This tax avoidance has significantly pushed up the value of farm land, thus increasing the number of farms valued at £3m or more - which will, in the future, make their heirs liable to the tax. However, this didn't stop Clarkson from pretending to lead the farmers' protest!

    But was this protest actually rational in the first place? Because it's true that only a minority of farms will fall into the taxable category (and only by 2026). In fact the give-away that this was a put-up rabble-rousing job, rather than a genuinely spontaneous protest of angry farmers, was the enthusiastic participation of Tory shadow minister for farming, Victoria Atkins, suitably clad in a jacket made out of a Union Jack. That, and the speech from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who told farmers that the Tories "had their backs..."

    reminding rich landowners that after all, the Tories are their "natural party" and "please come back to us"!

    Labour ministers are accused of knowing nothing about rural life - nor farmers' problems. This may well be true. But what was also clear was the anti-working class nature of the protest. One of the farmers' spokespersons said that the £5bn subsidy allocated to farmers, was chicken feed from a government which had just given £6bn to its "union friends"... By which he meant the pay rise for public sector workers, some of whom hadn't had a pay rise for 5 years.

    One should add too, that a vast number of farmers in this country are tenants: they don't even own their farms. For them the issue isn't inheritance tax, but that they can't even make ends meet. What really would make all the difference is if farmland was nationalised and its output planned rationally (and ecologically!) according to need!

    But under the capitalist system, private property remains "sacred" - and no government would dare to implement such a radical change. Even if it is the only one which would be the interests of all. Farmers would then, of course, become "public sector" workers...