Farmers

Bring back wisdom Sir: Douglas Murray is right that reducing the educational attainment of politicians is not the answer to people’s demand for change (‘The perils of idiocracy’, 28 February). But we do have an educational divide driven by disrespect, which graduates have caused and need to fix. Historically, non-graduates associated those of higher education with values like wisdom, curiosity and insight, thereby qualifying educated people to fix complex problems and make big decisions affecting everyone else. Now, people see insufficient evidence of such qualities among those in charge. The less that higher education imparts genuine wisdom and expertise, the more it relies on looking down on ‘respectable’ people and opinions.

Class war Sir: Your leading article, ‘More in common’ (24 January), laments the ‘civil war’ between Reform and the Conservatives. But this division goes much deeper. Reform’s core support is the patriotic white working class in the so-called Red Wall seats – the people (often male) who supported Brexit and flocked to Boris Johnson in 2019 when he promised to get Brexit done. They are cultural conservatives but economic statists. That’s why (against his better instincts) Nigel Farage backs steel and water nationalisation and is soft on welfare and pensions. Reform’s natural political bedfellows are not the Tories, but the SDP (left economically, right culturally).

The last straw Farmers are threatening to strike over the government’s changes to inheritance tax in what is being described as a first in Britain. Besides France, where farmers regularly protest, India witnessed a farmers’ strike in 2020, which was eventually settled after the government dropped proposed new laws. But one of the earliest farmers’ strikes was conducted by the Farmers’ Holiday Association in Iowa in 1932, by farmers protesting at consistently low prices for their products. The idea was that farmers would go on ‘holiday’, refusing to sell any of their produce. Few, however, joined, leading to pickets blocking rural roads with telegraph poles. One policeman was killed, but in an accidental discharge of his gun. The action died down after a few months.