Farming is irrational; so is the government

Plus: Does The Observer have a future?

Some political battles are easily foreseen. Others should be. The government’s decision to scrap the universal winter fuel payment (while retaining it for the poorest pensioners) was clearly going to be unpopular. It was a kind of test of strength, though, and a means of testing certain waters. For if you cannot trim benefits paid to the wealthiest cohort of pensioners in British history, what state-sponsored, vote-buying, largesse can you trim? In this respect, the winter fuel brouhaha has been a salutary demonstration of political realities and one worth much more than the £1.5bn it is supposed to save.

That is chickenfeed, really, in a trillion pound budget. And so are a lot of other measures, including the decision to impose inheritance tax - albeit at a discounted rate - on agricultural land. The sums likely to be brought in by this change are trivial - ministers have been very keen to tell upset farmers just how easy it is to avoid these taxes! - but the signal is received loud …