Yet even farmers sitting on a fortune think they should be bailed out. Walk into the bankruptcy court any day of the week and case after case will bring tears to your eyes at the sight of so many decent people wiped out by bad luck or bad judgment. Two out of three new business start-ups fail. Farmers are not the only hard-pressed businessmen to commit suicide. Images of the harsh treatment meted out to the miners colour all our current attitudes towards compensating lame-duck industries.
Global markets change and in over-producing meat, farmers misjudged their markets.
We can feel very sorry for them, though their political attitudes don't always make it easy. Letting the Countryside Alliance be their advocate is about as helpful to their cause as Arthur Scargill was to the miners'. Cleverer leadership would have had the farmers' tractors rolling down Whitehall long ago to protest at the high pound which is the gravest single cause of their distress. Other industries get some benefit from cheaper imported raw materials, but for farmers who import nothing the high cost of exporting is pure calamity. The NFU has always been pro-euro, but they haven't rolled out their tanks to demand early entry.