There’s blood on Treasury walls, I hear, after scion of a wealthy farming family Henry Tufnell questioned the 20 per cent half-rate inheritance tax on the value of rural estates above £1m. Cabinet enforcer Pat McFadden’s parliamentary calculator-carrier Torsten Bell wielded a financial chainsaw to cut down the new Labour MP for Mid and South Pembrokeshire, detailing how nearly all family farms would be exempted from the change, which will close a loophole exploited by bleating rich vested interests. Old Radleian Tufnell’s family owns 2,000 acres in the Cotswolds. His father was once president of a Country Land and Business Association, née Country Landowners’ Association, whose 28,000 members control 10 million acres, while his mother was high sheriff of Gloucestershire.
Shoot-from-the-lip Kemi Badenoch is seeking a Fleet Street hack to clean up after her gaffes and improve strained relations with the Tory press. One name in particular is doing the rounds, but the journalist is concerned about job security when many of the two thirds of Tory MPs who didn’t back Kemikaze give the new leader two years before she sufferers the fate of Iain Duncan Smith.
Spreading like wildfire among Labour aides and researchers is a rumour that Keir Starmer fan David Tennant is to voice over a party political broadcast after the actor’s “shut up” spat with Badenoch. I’m filing this gossip under the heading “Too good to check”.
Badenoch’s coronation had historian Clare Mulley recalling Kemikaze posing for photographs after Kindertransport-child-turned-national-treasure Alf Dubs unveiled Mulley’s husband Ian Wolter’s “Children of Calais” sculpture, which highlights the plight of unaccompanied child refugees. Badenoch went on to vote against reuniting kids with families in the UK, but a snout observed her stuffing £20 into a collection box for the Safe Passage refugee charity.
The two Labour newbies who’ve joined the Socialist Campaign Group are Alloa and Grangemouth’s Brian Leishman and Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr’s Steve Witherden. Leishman was a professional golfer with a shop at his local club, while Witherden is an ex-teacher. Witherden’s membership of organised left-wing Westminster opposition to Starmer explains why the whips enjoyed his scolding for sipping from a carton of milk in the chamber.
Death-row Tory hereditary peers are asking Badenoch to save them from Starmer’s execution block by including them on a list of new lifers for the Lords. The landed gentry’s £361 tax-free daily allowance could be saved towards unexpected inheritance bills.
Kevin Maguire is the associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
[See also: The revenge of Donald Trump]
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This article appears in the 07 Nov 2024 issue of the New Statesman, Trump takes America