Yesterday’s episode of Countryfile featured a segment on Labour’s farm tax. Steve Reed got to make his case…
Within minutes the programme introduced “tax expert” Arun Advani to discuss claims from “farming groups” that thousands of farms will be dragged into IHT payment. Advani peddled his own figures which effectively ignore one half of the Farm Tax’s relief removals…
Co-conspirators will remember Advani is director of radical-left think tank CenTax – which consistently pushes for broad and extensive tax hikes. The BBC programme failed to specify that Advani’s numerous reports pushing for the Farm Tax have formed the basis of Reeves’ policy – something admitted by the Treasury. The Countryfile producers also didn’t think it was worth specifying that Advani has pushed for the state expropriation of farmland that is sold as a result of APR’s removal…
The programme made no allusion either to the fact that Advani says Labour is “genuinely listening” to him, all while Treasury minister James Murray spoke at CenTax’s launch and said he seeks “to make sure that collaboration between CenTax, Treasury and HMRC continues for many years into the future.” Advani is writing Treasury policy…
As Guido has long documented, left-wing wonks political positions are rarely contextualised by the BBC on screen and in print. Imagine the uproar from the left if someone from the Institute of Economic Affairs got interviewed without it being mentioned that they were pro-free market…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”