Keir Starmer – facing a relentless storm

Keir Starmer’s freefall down the polls with a petition pleading with him to resign doing the opposite does little to foster calm in a UK which had grown weary of revolving premiers amongst the previous administration.  

Starmer’s Government chart, 5 July 2024 12.19 pm always looked ominous with Mars Uranus (Algol) in the 8th hinting at turbulence especially on the economic front. Plus a discouraging Saturn in the 6th house of employment and health.

 Liz Truss’s ill-fated 45 day premiership, 6 September 2022 12.27pm which ended when she was forced to resign after an internal rebellion, also had Mars in the 8th. According to a political analyst it was the market crisis which tolled her departure. And that may well be the next hurdle for the hapless Starmer/Reeves duo. Since on the UK chart, the 8th house Mars, already heavily stressed will face a major explosion point when the conjunction from Solar Arc Uranus reaches exact in five months.

  The UK chart also has an undermining, indecisive Solar Arc Midheaven square its 2nd house Neptune now; tr Uranus square the 11th house Saturn (= hopes for the future and the legislature) for high tensions and divisive arguments late this December to mid March 2025. Plus a panicked tr Neptune Saturn opposition the UK Uranus come mid 2025 into 2026.  Nothing that will make it easy for an administration already struggling to gain traction.

  If Starmer were to be voted out by an internal rebellion it would not be entirely surprising since his Leadership chart, 4 April 2020 10.45 am London, has an equally punishing Saturn Mars in Aquarius in the 8th – which is being ground down by tr Pluto conjunct the Saturn now and moving in to conjunct the Mars/Saturn and Mars in 2025/26.

 His personal chart, 2 September 1962, no time, Southwark, is facing a significant setback around now with his Solar Arc Saturn squaring his Mars on one leg of his Water Grand Trine/Kite – so disaster resonating right round his chart. With a Solar Arc Pluto conjunct his Neptune and SA Sun to follow within months which suggests devastating confusion. A staging-post tr Uranus square Uranus from mid 2025 into 2026; and a collision-type shock probably late 2025 from SA Mars conjunct his Sun. With the complete end-of-the-road SA Mars conjunct his Sun Pluto conjunction through 2025.

  I never thought he’d see 2026 still in power but his exit stage-left may come before then – not that it would make much difference since there is no messiah in sight across the political landscape.

  Rachel Reeves, 13 February 1979, with her fixed Aquarius Sun catching the tr Uranus square now and again in the spring will be stiffening against the changes being presented to her. With tr Pluto opposing her Jupiter giving her an overdose of misplaced confidence through 2025.  The UK will not be looking kindly on the results of her policies with tr Neptune Saturn opposing the composite Mars from April 2025 onwards plus other negative indicators.

  The Labour Party, 12 February 1906, chart which showed the recent win most clearly looks rattled ahead, stuck in 2025 and panicked and riven by internal arguments by 2026.

  None of which looks like bringing peace to a fractious nation anytime soon.

  Standing back to take a considered view of the UK chart – tr Uranus finishes its shake-up of all the UK Fixed planets from spring 2025 onwards and heads to the end of the 8th house of transformation in 2026 which should stabilise the economic situation thereafter.  The SA Uranus crossing the 8th house Mars in 2025 will be a last hurdle though of considerable proportions.

  The UK yod of Jupiter sextile Uranus inconjunct Pluto in Pisces is getting hammered all the way with tr Pluto opposition the Jupiter in 2025, which could see social unrest and jousting with authorities. Tr Neptune Saturn opposition the Uranus from mid 2025 into 2026 will be highly strung, nerve-stretched, could see fanatical outbursts and divisive arguments. Then tr Uranus square the focal point Pluto in 2026/27 which will see disruptions, upheavals and a sudden shift onto a new trajectory.

  A bruised, battered, tattered but revisioned UK will emerge thereafter. Stirring times though utterly exhausting.

  Poor Keir Starmer, right place, wrong time.

83 thoughts on “Keir Starmer – facing a relentless storm

  1. Starmer is really the worst politician at any time. He has minimal political acumen and rose to the top without any scrutiny. Rosie Duffield (who is no fan of the left) articulated many of his limitations as a politician. Cutting Winter fuel payments, going after PIP claimants and the rushed through assisted dying bill is not morale boosting. (8th house emphasis in the term chart?).

    What is worrying is that the only opposition seems to be coming from Reform; many of the people signing the petition would probably vote Reform, and the left doesn’t seem to be able to rise to the challenge in any meaningful way.

  2. Thanks Hugh for as usual, your insightful and measured comments on this astrology site
    resisting the political sniping and unpleasantness.Sad too that there is so much discord at a time some kindness and cooperation among politicians wouldn’t come amiss.

  3. I hold a different view. Both Starmer and Labour’s charts shoe a bad period until 2027 but then new direction for both and the UK after then. Assuming the election is 2029 it hints at a much better 2027, 2028 and 2029 than their first few years were. It would be interesting to look at Reform and Farage for the 2027 to 2029 period.

    • I wonder about Farage and Reform going forward too. Also the Greens and which way they will go in the future – they have a couple of MPs in farming areas which is interesting.

      Professor John Curtice who is good for guidance on what is going on with the voting public thinks we are seeing the end of the two party system.

      More in Common does regular polling of voters and their polls are quite informative to read too.

  4. Whoa stop press…an excellent press conference about immigration by Keir …kicking Tories to the kerb very decisively.Hopefully for ever. More like this pls!

  5. It should be noted too that the farmers are not done with Rachel Reeves. The rage in the countryside is incandescent and farmers can really hit where it hurts if they decide enough is enough and make good on their threat to go ‘full French’. The short-sighted incompetence of this ill-thought-through decision on tax is fanning the flames of belief in the countryside that this government is so steeped in urban metropolitan indifference and ignorance about what matters in rural areas and simply don’t care about agriculture because farmers don’t traditionally tend to vote Labour.

    And the UK is a very long way from self-sufficiency. In such difficult times, food security should be foremost; we should be expanding food production not restricting it, yet Ed Miliband is threatening to carpet grade 1 farmland in solar panels that could more easily be accommodated on brownfield and industrial sites. This buys into conspiracy theories that it’s part of Labour’s long time plot to remove small farmers and replace them with bigger players more amenable to Labour’s ‘5 Year Plans’. it is no longer the tin-foil-hat brigade who think this. These ideas have legs and are gaining credibility.

    I just don’t know enough astrology to figure out where this is going to go. Would Ceres be involved? Saturn was the god of crops and the harvest but the situation and the fury seem too volatile for Saturn. I would love to hear opinions and predictions on this.

    • Venus and 4th house are the agricultural areas – haven’t time to look further at the moment. But Ceres on the UK chart at 23 degrees Taurus in the 8th is due for a shakeup come late this December to mid March 2025 with tr Uranus conjunct and square the 11th house parliamentary Saturn.

      • Interesting! Thanks very uch for that Marjorie. I also find myself wondering how Jeremy Clarkson’s chart fits in since he seems to have become a popular and credible voice for agriculture. His show has certainly raised awareness of the horrible difficulties of making a living farming with the general public, and this has made him very popular with farmers.

      • It’s interesting to see that Ceres was discovered on the same date as the UK Union chart, 1801. Perhaps this makes Ceres particularly meaningful for the UK? Chart is timed 8.43pm on Astrodienst.
        It’s MC is 24 Taurus, so currently tr Uranus is and has been shaking that up a bit, along with Ceres herself. Looks like a sensitive degree area for the UK – the Edgar 973 has the Sun/Mars/Mercury conjunction at 25-6 Taurus square Pluto, 27 Leo.The Battle of Hastings has Neptune 24 Taurus, and the UK House of Commons has Mars 23 Taurus, with Saturn 21 Taurus.
        The Lunar Eclipse next March at 23 Virgo is trine Uranus and opposite Saturn – so could be a pivotal time? Virgo being a grain goddess symbolically might come into this too.

        The 11th House UK Saturn in 23 Leo was having its return in 1830 when the agricultural workers Swing Riots kicked off across the country in late August 1830. They caused much upheaval and social unrest.

        Tr Ceres is currently at 26 Capricorn – quite symbolic of wealth tied up in the land, and former agricultural god Saturn’s home sign.

        • @Jane. It’s interesting to see that Ceres was discovered on the same date as the UK Union chart …

          Wow! That really is interesting. Especially coming in the early years of the industrial revolution – Britain being the very first nation to industrialise – at a time when small farmers were under immense pressure and many people were being forced off the land and into the factories.

          And I’ve just noticed the Keir Starmer Government chat’s Ceres is exactly conjunct my own. Not sure what that signifies!

          • The early 19th century saw astronomers map the asteroid belt, Ceres was the first body (a dwarf planet) to be discovered there and is number 1 in a series of asteroid belt discoveries during these years.

            The Industrial Revolution can be dated back to around 1760. At the beginning of that year, Pluto was at 26 Sagittarius, which I believe is the degree of Galactic Centre. It was believed that a planet had once existed between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter, but had been hit by a comet and had shattered into pieces, eventually to form the asteroids we know as Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta.

            Due to the interest in discovering more about this event, a group of astronomers came together to form what they called ‘The Celestial Police’. Baron Franz Xaver von Zach and Johann Hieronymus Schröter, owner of an observatory at Lilienthal in Germany, both took it upon themselves to create and galvanise an active community of astronomers to search for missing planets.

            After a suggestion made by Joseph-Jérome de Lalande, Zach and Schröter, together with Karl Harding, Heinrich Olbers, Freiherr von Ende and Johann Gildemeister formed a group calling themselves the ‘Celestial Police’. Meanwhile Italian priest turned astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi spotted Ceres on 1 January 1801. At first the astronomer believed it to be a comet, but it was later confirmed that he had in fact discovered a small planet. He named this body ‘Ceres’ after the Roman goddess of Agriculture. Pallas was discovered in 1802 followed by Juno in 1804. It was in March 1807 that Heinrich Olbers made his second discovery in the asteroid belt, Vesta which is the brightest of all these bodies. It was William Herschel who classified them as asteroids.

            During this period, Pluto was in the first decan of Pisces, Britain at this point fighting sea battles as a sophisticated naval power – artistically we were at the height of the Romantic period and of course this was the midst of the Industrial Revolution. In 1807, in the same month that Vesta was discovered, Britain abolished the Slave trade. Pall Mall became the first street to have gas lighting, the Oystermouth Railway becomes the first passenger carrying railway in the world, the Anglo-Russian war begins and the Battle of Copenhagen takes place. A momentous period with those Roman goddesses heralding in a century of huge reform and inventiveness.

          • I might add that since the discovery of those asteroids, more and more have been discovered and continue to be so.

    • From a FB post:
      “My dad is a farmer – single man. The farm has been in the family for a long time – it’s worth £4m quid in total. We make £40k per year from the farm.
      Dad dies, we get 1m tax free, but suffer 20% of £3m, which is 600k, on the rest. Can’t afford it, sell the farm.
      I’ve still got £3.4m. What am I gonna do with it? I buy a property portfolio, driving housing prices up in my local area, and rent it out to you.
      Where I used to make a 1% return on my assets, I now make 5%. I am getting richer for doing a lot less, though I have had to give up producing food for you to eat in super markets.
      I’m okay, because I’m rich, but Britain either produces less food, or BlackRock produces food for you.
      Britain’s food supply is gradually more and more controlled by foreign investors, but I can still eat good because I’m rich.
      I did try to warn you that this would happen, but you insisted you wanted me gone. So I am currently living in my second home in Spain sipping margaritas and collecting about 10 grand a month from the letting agency.
      You are eating bugs. Happy?”

      • I don’t buy this. The solution: One or two fields could be sold, perhaps to local community or someone wanting to start up in farming. Farmer keeps the rest of the farming and infrastructure, and is still rich. Where’s the problem with rich farmers and landowners paying IHT- the new rate is twice as good as non-farmers have to pay.

        • @LisaV. The solution: One or two fields could be sold, perhaps to local community or someone wanting to start up in farming.
          Sorry, but this is typically simplistic lack of understanding of the true situation. Loss of land = loss of income. Farmers are already working hideously long hours, 7 day weeks for tiny incomes, far, far less than the minimum wage. To cut income even further will drive many or most small farmers out of business. It isn’t just land either, it’s assets: the machines and animals, without which the farm cannot function but are valuable enought to take the farm way over the £1m threshold.

      • There is an element of blackmail here by the farmers that I don’t like and an element of taxing the poorer from the government side that I don’t like instead of poking a bit into some much fuller pockets with dough to spare for everyone’s benefit.

    • Small farmers already own a tiny proportion of UK farmland. Here are the figures at 2023.

      Aristocracy 30%
      Corporations 18%
      Unknown 17.5%
      Tycoons 17%
      Public Sector 8.5%
      Individual homeowners 5%
      Charities 2%
      Crown and royals 1.4%
      Church of England .5%

      Farmland is used by the rich as a tax shelter, it artificially inflates the value of land keeping the market closed to smaller farmers. As long as the exemptions for small farms are fair and work, then I’m in favour of closing this loophole.

      • exactly right…but they won’t because they are bankrolled by that lot.the ‘unknown’ stat is interesting and needs digging into.

  6. Would really be glad Marjorie, if you could analyse the chart of the Australian Prime Minister for those of us reading your always interesting Astro analysis of N Hemisphere events, from Aus. There is an election early 2025.

  7. The petition is just a stunt designed to create a sense of crisis. With a huge majority in the commons and four and a half years before the next election I think that Starmer, whatever his failings, can ride out this faux storm.

    • Just for a bit of perspective, many — even most, especially if their party has been out of power for a long time, as with Labour now and Bill Clinton and the Democrats in the US in the ’90s — often have a rocky start. They’re unaccustomed to governing and sometimes put the wrong policies in place and often misread the public mood. Overreach is common.

      This may well be the case now in the UK — and we’ll have to wait to see what happens with Trump and his bizarre band of cronies in the US next year. (The Republicans invariably overreach, misinterpreting a slight popular vote margin for a mandate.)

  8. Like Hugh, I can see part time jobs disappearing too. It’s not just the NI costs that have increased for employers, the minimum wage has too and then there’s the impact of the proposed workers rights legislation which will no doubt increase employment costs further.

    Starmer and Reeves will not last long. They are becoming too unpopular and their MPs will want to keep their jobs.

    • Marjorie looked briefly at Ed Miliband on 26 July 2024 in her piece on GB Energy. It looked as though great judgement was not one of his strengths.

      • I always thought his brother would one day come back and at least try to be PM. But I guess he said Whoa, I was lucky, and I’m not coming back. What was I thinking even wanting that job?!?

  9. From the Saffron Walden Reporter, 25 March 2019….

    “More than 10,000 people in the constituency of Saffron Walden have signed a petition to revoke Article 50 and remain the EU – the highest number of signatures in Essex – but MP Kemi Badenoch says “we run the country based on elections and not petitions”.

    The petition, which calls for Brexit to be cancelled, has gained more than five million signatures with the host website crashing at one point, due to the volume of visitors adding their names.”

        • She’s a weird campaigner for workers’ rights with a good property portfolio, sponsored designer clothes, probably expensive coiffeur, and stays at expensive flats for holidays in NYC.

          • @El Aznar On the contrary she is a good example of someone who has managed to overcome adverse conditions when young and rise through the existing platforms, in her case the trade union.
            She is impressive, good looking and with an eclectic dress sense, I quite liked her orange trouser suit with her long ginger locks she managed to look like a giant carrot.

  10. “a panicked tr Neptune Saturn opposition the UK Uranus come mid 2025 into 2026.”

    Thanks Marjorie, very timely as always, and fascinating. Thinking about when Neptune last entered Aries (1861) I saw that it opposed tr Saturn in Libra at 1 degree in November 1862. This was the period of the American Civil War, and the Lancashire Cotton Famine. Issues of tarrifs, free trade, movement of people who’d lost their source of income (increase in emigration to Australia, New Zealand and the USA), technological innovations in the cotton industry….the many ramifications of this time seem to find echoes in what’s happening now.

    “The Lancashire Cotton Famine, also known as the Cotton Famine or the Cotton Panic (1861–1865), was a depression in the textile industry of North West England, brought about by overproduction in a time of contracting world markets. It coincided with the interruption of baled cotton imports caused by the American Civil War and speculators buying up new stock for storage in the shipping warehouses at the entrepôt.[1] It also caused cotton prices to rise in China” Wikipedia

    The tr Neptune/Saturn conjunction opposing UK Uranus brings employment and health in focus, as you say. Uranus sitting in the UK 12th house could shake up hospitals, prisons, and other institutions and laws (Libra). Bearing in mind Neptune and Saturn’s previous visit to this degree, our ‘relationship’ with the USA may also be emphasised. Back in the 19th century crisis, some cottonmill workers wrote this letter to President Abraham Lincoln:

    ” the vast progress which you have made in the short space of twenty months fills us with hope that every stain on your freedom will shortly be removed, and that the erasure of that foul blot on civilisation and Christianity – chattel slavery – during your presidency, will cause the name of Abraham Lincoln to be honoured and revered by posterity. We are certain that such a glorious consummation will cement Great Britain and the United States in close and enduring regards.”

    — Public Meeting, Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 31 December 1862.

  11. Parans for Starmer government:
    Pluto rising when Acumens rising….”What is strong is shown to be weak.”
    Pluto setting when Denebola on IC…”A breakdown in the administration.”
    Annual Themes for this location:
    Sun rising when Arcturus sets …”New leadership needed.”

  12. They should install a revolving door at 10 Downing Street, make it easier for all these various PMs to come & go. 5 in the last 8 years. It begs the question, who could be next?

    Saw an episode of Jeopardy in the US last week. They showed a picture of Kier & asked who it was, and nobody knew him. Says it all really.

    • An Australian TV commentator misidentified Liz Truss, King Charles III’s first Prime Minister, as “some minor royalty” when she entered Westminster Abbey for the Coronation.

      I think the last UK Prime Ministers that could be identified by the public outside the UK were probably Cameron and Boris Johnson.

    • If a certain demographic can’t find or name countries on a map, it’s highly unlikely they’d know who was in government there. Does indeed say it all.

  13. Thank you Marjorie for a very considered analysis. I’m not sure I would base too much on that petition. Around 15000 signatures were ( illegally) from abroad and Elon Musk has shared it. The most signatories were from constituencies with a high number of Reform and Tory voters, although there has been some unrest elsewhere. I also think there is a degree of misogyny in complaints of Rachel Reeves. I’m not sure who considered the previous government were competent however!
    That notwithstanding there have been missteps. It does look as though this government has very bad astrology to contend with.

    • The petition has now passed 2.7 million signatures, so your 15000 possibly ‘illegal’ signatures is a very small percentage of the total.

      • I’m not prepared to get into an argument with you Ken, or continue the discussion
        but 6,828,925 people voted Tory in the general election and 4, 117, 610 voted Reform. I doubt that any of these would be natural supporters of the current government. I think that the very real danger that is growing and being ignored is regarding interference in our political process and the role of the media.

        • Yes. These are the real dangers. Makes me think again about Neptune and Pisces current influence = glamour, lies, delusion. I wonder how things are going to change come April next year.

        • Trish. Well I voted Labour and they have completely gone against the majority of the people re money and jobs and businesses. And I signed the petition. Its hard to find anyone who is happy with Labour at present and we feel truly let down. Taking the Winter fuel payment within 3 weeks showed who they are to save a piffling £1.5 billion. Pathetic and needless distress caused and as for us Waspi women we are totally disgusted with the Tories and Labour. If there was a new election who the heck can you vote for ?

  14. The current situation reminds me a lot of the early 1970s. Starmer seems to suffer some of the failings of Edward Heath who who found it difficult to connect to the public. Rachel Reeves seems very similar to the hapless Tony Barber who was never really upto the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Both were overwhelmed by a tidal wave of problems such as Strikes, Inflation, the Oil Crisis, civil in Ulster etc not all of which they created but most of which they made worse by their poor leadership and decision making. One thing that era shared in common with now was difficult transits to Uranus in both the U.K. 1801 chart (1 Libra) and 1927 chart (0 Aries). Heath’s own government formed on 19 June 1970 had Uranus at 4 Libra and Pluto at 24 Virgo. During the next 4 years Pluto by transit hit all those Uranus degrees in both the national and government charts creating a state of near permanent crisis in the UK. I am not sure that things are going to be quite the same this time but I can see that the Neptune/Saturn transits from late Pisces into Aries are going to similarly stress the Uranus in those U.K. charts.

    • @Hugh Fowler
      I believe Tony Barber’s disastrous budget begun the inflationary trend in the housing market which set off the disconnection between salaries and the price of houses further aggravated later on by the various measures re council houses etc, Mrs Reeves budget is simply too one sided.

  15. Keep in mind that the 8th house is not only financial. There are rumblings of war with Russia. Sabotage is already taking place. Also, relations with Trump are likely to be abysmal. One Trump adviser has already threatened economic war against the UK if it ever makes good on its intent to arrest Netanyahu following the ICC indictment. To stand up for the international rule of law in an age of tyrants is to me heroic. Starmer, like Schulze and others, is a good man overwhelmed by a very dark time. Still, the world is fortunate to have him as long as he can hang on. I’ll take him over the sitting or future American President any day. How about three cheers for goodness and humanity?

    • Pressure on the UK 8th house Mars in the past has also coincided with train, sea, bomb disasters involving deaths. When tr Pluto in Scorpio was in opposition in the 1980s.
      I also always thought that Germany’s 8th house Pluto and Moon catching the tr Uranus conjunction through WW11 indicated other facets of the 8th house. Not all economic but almost always involving financial repercussions.

  16. Just realised that my Jupiter is almost conjunct (within an orb of two degrees) the UK’s Jupiter. So any tr planets to it would also hit my Jupiter in the same way.

    At the moment, as Marjorie mentioned, there is no messiah waiting in the wings, on either side of the political divide.

    If Starmer is defenenstrated by his own side, presumably the leader would be Angela Rayner, the current deputy leader. Marjorie, could you do an add-on for her please?

  17. How interesting, thanks Marjorie.

    Mars Uranus in the 8th fits very well with the current furore over farmer inheritance tax: 8th house ‘other people’s money’ – and action, innovation and change with this. Saturn – coming down to earth with a bump.

    Personally I think that Starmer and his team have made some brave decisions, given the absolute mess they inherited from fourteen years of Conservative corruption and misrule. The outcry from those owning millions of pounds’ worth of land about having to pay their share of tax – and the appropriation of their cause by the populist right – has been sorry to see.

    I do think that Starmer’s team are struggling to communicate their positive vision, in a sea of social media disinformation that is creating wave upon wave of terrible lurches to the far right in elections across the world. It’s clear that one of the major storms the UK government has to navigate is the constant barrage of lies and abuse from the right wing press and certain media commentators, all of whom have been out to get Starmer and see no reason to present any balance in their analysis or arguments. I would include the BBC in that group.

    Good luck to the Labour government, they are a (curretly rare) government who are genuinely trying to do good and decent things for the UK and its people. I would far rather have them in power than the unthinkable alternative. There are clearly choppy times ahead.

    • In Vedic astrology, the eighth house is one of the three “duustt-sttans” (negative houses, the others being the sixth and twelth houses). In personal charts, it is also interpreted as the house of the wealth of the in-laws.

      Vedic astrology treats houses as being additive, so second house=one’s family’s wealth and seventh house=spouse, therefore eighth house=wealth of the family of one’s spouse (being the second house from the seventh house, with inclusive addition). Similarly, one’s nephews and nieces would be the third house (the fifth house of children from the 11th house of siblings), etc.

      So, yes, the interpretation of the eighth house as “other people’s wealth” makes sense).

      • This is also true in Western astrology. At least, I’ve seen it in Hamaker’s school. The eighth is other people’s money. It is also inheritance.

        And, if the 10th is your profession, professional and social standing, your 11th house is your income from those positions.

    • Im afraid the UK is about to go in to a very nasty recession. Whilst I agree that the previous government were indeed “corrupt”, Labour inherited an economy that was doing OK however, Reeves and all of the cabinet members, are way out of their depths.

      As for the IHT debacle, yes, the exemption has been abused and if the government had any wit, they could easily identify those that do not operate as farms and merely used as tax avoidance. Working generational farms, should not be penalised on unrealised assets. IHT is a terrible tax and should be abolished, for everyone.

      Labour our in bed with the likes of Blackrock (a huge asset manager with trillions under managemeent). Watch them offer loans to farmers with IHT liabilities on condition that the land is handed to them on lease to create swathes of useless solar farms subsidised by you, the tax payer.

      Starmer won’t see a full term in fact, he will likely be ousted when his fellow MP’s see the damage Reeves budget is about to do. The man would do well as a circus performer.

      Roll on 2028/29.

      • In addition 30% if small farms are tenant farmer operated which means when the land is sold selling for IHT the farmer and family are left homeless and incomeless.

        • That happened to my family in the early 70s. We lived as tenants on agricultural land that was sold off to developers for housing. We were made homeless and my grandfather lost his job and income. Luckily you could at least get a council house then – but now?

      • I think the Employers National Insurance changes will create the biggest problem as the raising of the rate and particularly the dropping of the threshold from £9100 to £5000 will make it uneconomic for many businesses to take on part time staff. The cost of a member of staff earning £12000 a year will now cost an employer more than £650 or an extra 5% to engage. I can see huge numbers of these part time jobs vanishing in sectors such as retail, catering and licensing and/or the cost being pushed by businesses onto the consumer via higher prices. This one single measure is going to increase unemployment as jobs are eliminated or merged into full time posts. This will particularly hit the poorest in society and women who make the vast bulk of part time workers in the UK. Quite why a Labour government is pursuing a policy that will see people on the dole, increase inflation and will probably trigger a recession is beyond me.

          • as on point as the labour isn’t working posters in the 80s. the cruellest thing this lot are doing which has at the moment gone under the radar is bringing the pip disability benefit into universal credit. this means each disabled person will be called to appear regularly for assessment in person before a panel whatever their condition. so nice, so compassionate.meantime 40,000 disabled pensioners have lost winter fuel allowance…

        • Hugh. Inevitable what you have said. Also the likes of Sainsburys and other huge supermarkets will have to put up food prices and other goods in their stores. That means the people paying again as shareholders must be kept on board. Astrology very similar to the last war re food and farming.

    • You cant sell part of the farm or retail business without impacting the whole farming and the business. This is not like you sell a inherited house to pay the death duties.

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