Andy Burnham is doing something the Starmer government conspicuously failed to do: picking up the phone. The new PM's team has been personally contacting activist farmers, dispatching Environment Secretary Angela Eagle to farmyards, and publicly conceding that government has a "long way to go to build back trust." The immediate result is notable — no tractor protest is planned for this year's budget, a sharp contrast to the horn-blaring fury that greeted the 2024 inheritance tax announcement. The backstory is a catalogue of self-inflicted wounds. The 2024 budget imposed an inheritance tax on farm assets that farmers called existential. Dialogue between government and the agricultural sector was, by multiple accounts, nonexistent. Former Environment Secretary Steve Reed was literally drowned out by tractor horns at farming events. A record 6,300 forestry, fishing and farming businesses closed last year, per ONS data, driven by a combination of tax changes, extreme weather, and inflation. Burnham's approach is classic political repair work: personal outreach, symbolic visits, and a carefully planted signal that an inheritance tax U-turn is "on the table" for the next budget. Government sources confirmed to the Guardian that ministers are looking for a "sweetener" — either a reduction in the inheritance tax or new money for nature-friendly farming. One rural Labour MP argued the latter would be more meaningful than another tax tweak. But the structural problems run deeper than charm can reach. The farming budget that replaced EU subsidies has been, in the words of one MP, "a shambles." This week, the government's £253 million annual budget for environmental land management was exhausted in just six hours, leaving thousands of farmers empty-handed. The system rewards those who can afford a land agent to submit applications fastest, not those who most need support. The political arithmetic is brutal. A CLA poll found that 0% of farmers would vote Labour again — a number so stark it barely needs commentary. Lord Blunkett noted that Labour holds around 135 rural or semi-rural seats, won in 2024, yet rural MPs felt frozen out under Starmer when they questioned the inheritance tax. Burnham has reportedly changed that dynamic with backbenchers, but voter trust is a different commodity. The wild card remains Jeremy Clarkson, whose Amazon show Clarkson's Farm has turned agricultural grievance into primetime entertainment. He was recently spotted filming with David Cameron, who called the farm inheritance tax "stupid" — a rare public rebuke from the former PM. Clarkson's platform reaches millions who will never read a Defra policy document. Burnham's farm offensive is competent retail politics, not structural reform. The real tests are whether the inheritance tax actually changes, whether the environmental land management budget gets a functional distribution mechanism, and whether British food procurement policy shifts toward domestic sourcing. Without those, the WhatsApp messages are just better-mannered versions of the same neglect.
