Thousands of farmers descended on Westminster today to protest against changes to agricultural inheritance tax that have been branded a "betrayal" by union leaders.

Among the changes outlined in last month's Budget is a tax of 20% to be introduced on inherited farming assets above £1 million. Jeremy Clarkson joined farming groups, who have warned of the "catastrophic" impact on family farms and are threatening to go on strike and blockade ports in protest against the government's plan.

What did the commentators say?
Parallels are being drawn between Labour's growing stand-off with farmers and the miners' strike 40 years ago. Keir Starmer has distanced himself from comments by former Tony Blair adviser John McTernan, who said he was in favour of doing to farmers "what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners".

That is the "existential fear" driving thousands of farmers to London today, said Will Lloyd in The Times: that "farmers are to the 2020s what miners were to the 1980s", the "unfortunate casualties of progress, punished and then abandoned by the state".

It's "easy to sympathise with their concerns at what they see as an assault on family farms",  said Donald Macintyre on the i news site. British agriculture is "already struggling to cope with the effects of Brexit, Covid and the relentlessly tight margins imposed by supermarket pricing". But while farmers are "furious" with Chancellor Rachel Reeves, her policy is still the "right one".

Labour has argued that only a quarter of the largest landowning farmers will be affected by the tax changes. The Tories are making "false claims" about their impact, wrote Steve Reed, secretary of state for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, in an article for The Telegraph. In the immediate aftermath of the Budget, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told Sky News that farmers will "still be better treated than anyone else in terms of inheritance tax".

What next?
The National Farmers' Union may be calling for "militant protest", said The Economist, but "when it comes to imposing their will on governments, British farmers have little practice" or "political nous".

Far from representing a "new communist dictatorship", predicted Will Hutton in The Guardian, the changes will drive down inflated land prices and enable priced-out young agriculturalists to start their own farms. "New life and ideas will be brought to the rural economy as innovative, energetic farmers enter the market", reinvigorating life in Britain's countryside.

An era-spanning mega mix of the 1984 hit "Do They Know It's Christmas?" will be released this year to mark its anniversary and to raise more money for charity. The new track will blend vocals from different versions of the single to make stars such as George Michael, Sinead O'Connor, Bono and Harry Styles sing "together".

But "not everybody is happy about it", said London's The Standard. The 40th anniversary remix has been "denounced" by Ed Sheeran, who claimed his voice had been used "without permission". The singer appeared on the 30th anniversary version of the track, but said in an Instagram that his "understanding of the narrative associated" with the song had since changed. Given the choice, he said, "I would have respectfully declined the use of my vocals".

'Not aged well'
The original release of "Do They Know It's Christmas?", by an all-star line-up of artists entitled Band Aid, was put together by Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof and Ultravox singer Midge Ure.

But the festive hit "has not aged well", said Deadline. Critics say the lyrics "perpetuate racist and patronising stereotypes of African people", and although later releases have "tweaked" some of the wording, the original version "remains the standard" for the airwaves every Christmas.

'Keeping millions alive'
The Band Aid Charitable Trust is believed to have raised more than £140 million over the past four decades, and spawned Live Aid, the 1985 concert, and Live 8, a similar project in 2005.

Fundraising has become "much more of a spectacle" in recent years, said Colin Alexander, senior lecturer in political communications at Nottingham Trent University, on The Conversation. Celebrities view charitable endorsements "as a key part of their star profile", and instances of "poverty porn have also become commonplace across the charity sector". But a negative outcome is that the recipients of donations are reduced "to mere 'victims' rather than full humans looking for agency".

Responding to Alexander's article, Geldof said his "little pop song has kept hundreds of thousands if not millions of people alive", and meant that many can "sleep safer, warmer and cared for tonight".

As the final part of Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" trilogy hits our TV screens, "I predict a sudden revival of the Tudor aesthetic", said historian Suzannah Lipscomb in The Telegraph. The impressive architecture and interiors on show in the BBC's adaptation of "The Mirror and the Light" will no doubt "drip its way into our collective subconscious", and soon many of us will be "longing" to explore one of Britain's "gorgeous" Tudor mansions.

The locations where the TV action was filmed have already seen a steep uptick in website traffic. "The Tudors, it seems, are still box-office gold," said The Guardian.

Thornbury Castle, just outside Bristol, is the "only Tudor castle in England where you can stay the night" and is well worth visiting, said Lipscomb. Guests may even get a chance to stay in the "very bedchamber" where Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, slept during their royal tour in 1535. The architecture is "magnificent": expect crossbow loopholes, gun ports and "the best original Tudor chimney stacks in the country".

Another "must for Tudor acolytes" is Hever Castle (pictured above), Boleyn's childhood home. Located in the Kent countryside around an hour-and-a-half drive from London, it has landscaped grounds and a walled rose garden to explore, and a "wonderful collection of Tudor portraits" to marvel at in the wood-panelled Great Hall.

For Peter Kosminsky, series director of the "Wolf Hall" trilogy, Haddon Hall is the "perfect" place for a day out, said The Guardian. Situated on the river Wye near Bakewell, Derbyshire, the meticulously preserved 11th-century stately home remains "relatively unchanged since Henry visited, bringing a tapestry that still hangs in the banqueting hall".

Treatment of carers is next Post Office scandal
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on the i news site
Millions of "extraordinary people" give up their "jobs, freedoms, leisure and many other pleasures" to care for loved ones, writes Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. "Society and governments owe them big time", yet thousands have been "criminalised for overpayments made by the Department for Work and Pensions" by mistake. Labour is "looking into" removing the "severe" penalties, but our leaders should also "praise the heroic carers who give so much in kind to the nation's coffers and its soul".

Social media exodus may make us all calmer
James Marriott in The Times
The exodus from X to Bluesky is "hardly Rome v Constantinople in 1054", writes James Marriott, but it is "nevertheless worthy of our attention". The "age of the pullulating and rambunctious 'digital town square'" appears to be over. "In the future, liberals and conservatives will congregate in different places." Good. Online fury comes not from "liberals and conservatives complacently agreeing with one another" but rather "from people seeing too much of their maddest political opponents".

A 'political trial'? Marine Le Pen is singing from the Donald Trump hymn sheet
Pauline Bock in The Guardian
Marine Le Pen "furiously denies any wrongdoing" after being accused of "using EU funds to pay staff in France who were working for" her National Rally party, writes Pauline Bock. Instead, the far-right leader claims she is facing a "political trial" to stop her from running for the French presidency in 2027. "Does this populist, anti-judiciary manoeuvring remind you of anyone?" It is "straight out of the Trump playbook" and "only time will tell how catchy the tune is".