One of the three working farms has gone and another will go in the next 12 months. Whatever its rhetoric, this government does not care about life in the countryside. The rural white paper published yesterday does its honest best to address the complaints of the many communities up and down Britain which feel this way. Having felt for years that they needed a voice, some now believe they have found one in the Countryside Alliance, which has orchestrated their genuine fears and apprehensions - though its core complaint that hunting, which it came into life to defend, is as much a staple of village life as church, school and pub is pure pretence. It is also undeniably true, as is pointed out in today's Analysis report, that the problems of poverty and social exclusion are worse in big towns and cities than they are in the countryside.
Poverty is indivisible.
Yet in terms of human happiness, social cohesion and even economic efficiency, these threatened communities deserve to be rescued. There will be muttering in the pub about some of John Prescott's proposals. The white paper says councils should be free to levy full council tax on second homes. That change is long overdue. As unradical an authority as Ewen Cameron, chairman of the Countryside Agency, thinks the rule should be mandatory.