Oliver Letwin was on the Today programme this morning and it was pretty depressing. Leaving aside his manner, which I am afraid is getting notaby self-satisfied and pompous, he was talking of the necessity of not scrapping the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). He said that the CAP is important for maintaining the look of our countryside because farmers are paid to keep it looking beautiful.
There are two objection to this line:
First: The European Union is even more incompetent and wasteful in what it does than the British government. If this payment to farmers to keep the countryside attractive is to continue, it should be done on a national basis, not on a European Union basis. It is very disappointing to hear a Conservative Party shadow minister presupposing that the European Union should do something like this in preference to our national government.
Second: It is highly dubious that farmers do make such a big, positive contribution to the look of the countryside anyway. In New Zealand, I believe, where agricultural subsidies were removed, the natural result was that land of low productivity was allowed to go back to nature. First, that mean it became scrubland. But over time, woods began to grow of their own accord. Woods are actually very attractive and, it could be argued, have a certain 'soul' about them. People seem to respond at a surprisingly deep level to woods. Fields can be most attractive too. But modern farming has often caused the creation of vast fields which are not always so good-looking. These are subjective matters. But it is far from clear that there is a major public benefit in subsidizing farmers to keep things exactly as they are. I suggest that it is positively immoral to tax, poor elderly people living in towns to pay for 'beauty by farming' schemes.
That is the thing that Mr Letwin appears to have forgotten. Poor people pay a lot of tax. This makes it a great responsibility for politicians never to spend a single penny that cannot be powerfully justified. Such justification does not apply in this case.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in European Union
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We seem to be suffering from a very depressing generation of Conservative MPs.
Posted by: James Hellyer at July 1, 2005 11:39 AM
Tax revenues keep flowing in abundantly no matter what politicians & administrators do with them. If spending on CAP is reduced, more revenues are left for spending elsewhere. Why should officials save? Their offices would be cut back. The revenues would go to other officials whose subordinates would increase -- enhancing these officials' positions.
Posted by: Sudha Shenoy at July 1, 2005 03:09 PM
I know relatively little as to how farm subsidies work in the US, but huge swathes of marginal land have gone back to nature in my native state of Michigan. It is remarkable how quickly scrub land regenerates to forest, and there is no doubt but that rural Michigan is a much prettier place to look at now than it was in my youth. Unfortunately, the whole SE of the state has been urbanised. Huge swathes of the countryside has been gobbled up for housing, much of it very low density (building plots of up to 5 acres). In part, this is a result of land tax, which makes it all but impossible to resist development when land values go up. Michigan, and the US, may be able to stand this, as the population density is so low compared to almost anywhere else in the civilised world. But introducing a land tax in Britain would unquestionably make it very difficult to let land lie fallow. No doubt I could afford to maintain my 3 1/2 acres of coppice, lake and garden, but living on the outskirts of Norwich--a rapidly-growing city--it is hard to say how long it would take before development pressures ruined my little Eden. Already we have a new, and completely unnecessary, bypass being proposed by our Conservative County Council. Whatever the Tories are these days, they can hardly claim to be conservative.
Posted by: tom burkard at July 1, 2005 05:33 PM
I have a web page speaking up for CAP I think we need food subsidy look what happened in the British empire when we had a free trade system in food. Food production should be subsidised to gurantee food security, and enivronment. The free market is not magic. What we should fo is in fact subsidise African farming.
Posted by: Tony McRush at June 28, 2006 03:45 PM
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The Tories have shot themselves in the foot yet again. Tony Blair, a declared pro-European, is looking brave and statesmanlike battling with Chirac. Letwin, who represents a more Eurosceptic party at a time when Euroscepticism is raising cheers from the electorate, announces that we should keep a modified CAP.
Letwin is an idiot. Even if he believes what he said in his speech, how on earth can the Tories capitalise on such a limp wristed position.
I suppose a positive to come out of this situation will be Letwins’ removal when a new Tory leader in elected.
Posted by: John East at July 1, 2005 11:18 AM