Fasting, A Land Tax?

 Fasting?

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Landowners

Landscape,
 James Torrance (1859-1916) 
Photo Credit: Russel-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum [CC BY-NC-ND]

Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian that seeks to penetrate the secrecy surrounding land ownership.

The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal” mean about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half the country. Major owners include the Duke of Buccleuch, the Queen, several grouse moor estates and the entrepreneur James Dyson.

Jon Trickett, a Labour MP and shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, hailed the findings and called for a full debate on the issue, adding: “The dramatic concentration of land ownership is an inescapable reminder that ours is a country for the few and not the many.

It’s simply not right that aristocrats, whose families have owned the same areas of land for centuries, and large corporations exercise more influence over local neighbourhoods – in both urban and rural areas – than the people who live there…”

(The Guardian, 2019)

So, what’s to be done? A land tax perhaps?  Peter Brown has an initial suggestion. (see below)

*The imbalance could be addressed in a small but significant way if the tenant farmers on Crown Estate farms were given the same right to buy as council house tenants.

(Peter J Brown, Redbourn, Hertfordshire, The Guardian, 22.4.2019)

*If Duke William of Normandy were to visit today’s England, he would feel very much at home: a hereditary non-elected head of state at the apex of a pyramid of feudal landowning classes, who gained their property by virtue of birth or by clandestine operations, and with many of the “natives” living in slums. Plus ca change.

(Jane Ghosh, Bristol, The Guardian,22.4.2019)

*What’s astonishing about his research is how little has changed in the last 1,000 years. His [Guy Shrubsole] figures reveal that the aristocracy and landed gentry – many the descendants of those Norman barons – still own at least 30% of England and probably far more, as 17% is not registered and is probably inherited land that has never been bought or sold. Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population. The homeowners’ share adds up to just 5%: “A few thousand dukes, baronets and country squires own far more land than all of Middle England put together.

(P D Smith reviewing: Who Owns England? How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land – And How to Take It Back by Guy Shrubsole, The Guardian, 11.5.2019)