Resetting relations with rural Britain: lessons for the next Prime Minister to learn
CLA Director of External Affairs Jonathan Roberts explains that after years of damaging policy decisions, there is an opportunity for a the government to rebuild trust with farmers, landowners and rural business owners
I often think about the staircase in 10 Downing Street, which is famously lined with portraits and photographs of every Prime Minister since Robert Walpole.
In recent years, it has been acquiring new portraits at an astonishing rate. Now we know it is soon to acquire another one.
In the 286 years separating the start of Walpole's premiership and the end of Tony Blair's, the average length of a Prime Minister’s term in office was 5.5 years. In the 19 years between the start of Gordon Brown’s term and the end of Sir Keir Starmer’s, that figure falls to just 2.7 years.
It's no way to run a country, let alone one that has every right to be seen as a major economy, brimming with talent, skill and creativity. The uncertainty is appalling for investment, confidence and our international standing. But perhaps it also suggests we are no longer producing a political class – and a wider governing class – with the skills and experience necessary to make the country prosper.
We will all have our own views as to why that is. But what we might be able to agree on is this: ideology succeeds only in the absence of knowledge.
With little understanding of business, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves picked a fight with the rural community that we didn’t expect, nor did we deserve. The changes to inheritance tax for family farms and rural businesses continue to wreak havoc on the rural economy. Twinned with other anti-business, job-destroying changes announced in recent years, the rural economy has become – like the rest of the country – weaker and poorer.
As damaging as yet another change in government is, it does afford us an opportunity to move on. The next Prime Minister will almost certainly be Andy Burnham. He is a good man, but he is one who, having left university, became a researcher to an MP, then a special adviser, and eventually an MP and Mayor himself.
It is for career politicians to prove that they can be part of the solution, and not just part of the problem. For Mr Burnham, he can start by showing a wisdom that too many in the current government have not: understanding what he doesn’t know, and taking advice from those at the coalface. If he does that, he will find an enormous opportunity to reset the relationship with job creators, entrepreneurs and business owners across rural Britain.
We know that productivity in the rural economy is lower than the national average – closing that gap could add £43bn to the economy of England alone. That growth is perfectly achievable with a supportive government.
So, to all those MPs and strategists who are now working behind the scenes to shape what comes next, the message is simple, and proven to be true: you cannot tax your way to prosperity. And if you try, you will not only squander the enormous talents of your fellow countrymen and women, you will find that Andy Burnham too is destined to become just another photograph on an increasingly crowded staircase.
