Kemi Badenoch has been impressive but why did she not turn up to vote against the family farm tax? - Sarah Todd
There has been a new lady in The Husband’s life and a blind eye had been turned to the infatuation. Post-Budget He was caught several times re-playing this lady’s swashbuckling speech and chortling to himself.
Eventually, there was a confession … “I like Kemi Badenoch - she might just be able to turn things around for the Tories”. Indulgence was shown; after all the leader of the Conservatives was truly tip-top in her reply to the joyless Chancellor Rachel Reeves. She deserved to have middle-aged men hailing her the new Margaret Thatcher.
Like so many in public life, Ms Badenoch jumped on the bandwagon of being photographed on tractors and calling out this envy-driven Government’s changes to farm inheritance tax relief as “immoral and cruel.”
But, together with Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride, the honourable lady failed to record a vote in last week’s Finance Bill, which brings the family farm tax several acres closer to reality. In fact, more than 20 per cent of Conservative MPs failed to turn up to vote.
It must be said that Reform’s leader Nigel Farage - he whose old wax jacket has been around for years, not just hastily purchased for farming photo shoots - was there, making his mark against the draconian taxation which will see farmland sold and lost forever to incoming townies or solar panels.
But, rather like The Husband’s re-watching of Kemi cracking the Budget whip, this correspondent has kept replaying the video clip of Markus Campbell-Savours (with a name like that it’s hard to believe he is Labour) explaining why he stood completely alone among his party in voting to support the rural community of his rural Penrith constituency. What a wonderful young man, who took having the whip suspended for not toeing the Labour Party line squarely on the chin.
Explaining his decision to rebel, Campbell-Savours said he had promised local voters before the election that Labour would not touch the relief, adding it would leave many farmers "devastated at the impact on their family farms".
"When the good people of Penrith and Solway decide my time here is up, I intend to walk around my community knowing that I did all I could for them," he explained.
"I gave my word and I intend to keep it."
The observation about his double-barrelled name led to it being typed into the computer and he has a really interesting background, the son of Labour peer Lord Campbell-Savours of Allerdale and his Icelandic wife Guðrún Kristín Runólfsdóttir. His father was the MP for Workington from 1979 to 2001 and currently sits in the House of Lords.
During his extensive travels, he identified opportunities to use onyx marble as a material in manufacturing processes and used this knowledge to start a clock component manufacturing company in a former felt mill in the Lancashire town of Ramsbottom. He served as a shadow agricultural minister and showed great tenacity in campaigning for his area during tough times like the closure of steel works, along with blows to the fishing industry.
But back to his son. Before becoming an MP guess what, our young hero Mr Campbell-Savours Jnr worked in the very real world of construction as an electrical contracts manager. Despite his political ancestry, he wasn’t fast-tracked into Westminster, instead starting out right at the bottom at parish council level.
This says so much. He is from a family - whatever their political persuasion - that is integrated and understands what makes the local population tick (forgive the clock making pun).
Politics has, on the whole, moved away from this grass-roots connection and been replaced with a load of lily-livered robots who have ticked - sorry, that one was accidental - the box of graduating with the right degree and having an internship within the correct corridor of Westminster.
It genuinely brought a tear to the eye to read down the list of the 327 MPs who sided with the Government to limit the agricultural inheritance tax reliefs. Proud family farming areas in our own county such as Selby and York.
Yes, more than 80 Labour politicians did not vote on the issue - with a minority publicly stating that they had abstained to show solidarity with their farming and rural constituents - but what’s the point of that? Our Prime Minister is like a spoilt child who nobody, apart from that smashing young man from Cumbria, dare stand up to.
It is so important that all who are struggling at the moment - from so many walks of life, not just farmers - remember the old adage that tough times never last, but tough people do.