Urban people do not understand the countryside, says author Sir Michael Morpurgo

Sir Michael Morpurgo has said the Government’s changes to inheritance tax are “completely wrong”.

The author told the Sunday Times: “You don’t have a go at the pensioners and the farmers. I know because I live in the middle of the farming culture.

“To threaten one particular group seems to me to be completely wrong. It’s done by people who are fundamentally urban, who don’t really understand what the countryside is about.”

Sir Michael, who is best known for books such as War Horse and The Butterfly Lion, also said Britain is full of sociological and geographical division.

“We exploit them,” he said. “There is a massive division between town and country. It’s understandable: it’s part of having our industrial revolution earlier than other countries.

“If you go to Italy or France, where their industrial revolution came rather later, where they are more in contact with their food, with their farmers, it’s different.

“When French farmers have a protest there is considerable support among urban people.”

Despite the policy, Sir Michael declared himself a fan of Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Government.

Discussing Sir Keir, he said: “He’s not a shouter and he’s not a show-off. I’m fed up with show-offs. I don’t care if they’re from Russia or America or here. I want people who really do have some experience of the world, and have developed a care for other people.”

He claimed US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin have open “disrespect” for others, adding: “If you start talking about other people as if they are less important, that their culture is less important, then you’re on a road to confrontation.”