Labour has just completed another U-turn. It has partially backed down over imposing inheritance tax on farms. In trying to grab a small amount of extra tax revenue, it has alienated many in the countryside.

Not that these people will easily forgive the Government. They are naturally relieved that the threshold for paying inheritance tax has been increased from £1million to £2.5million (double that, if a farm is jointly owned by spouses or civil partners).

But many in the countryside remain convinced that Labour doesn't understand their way of life and believe that, even with less oppressive rates of tax, lots of family farms won't survive.

If Sir Keir Starmer were a wise politician he would try to reassure voters in the countryside. After all, in the 2024 election Labour won more than 100 rural seats in England, many for the first time. Don't these require some tender loving care?

The answer seems to be 'No'. Almost on the same day last week that the Government partly retreated over inheritance tax on farms, it announced a policy that is certain to meet with fierce opposition in many rural communities. It intends to ban trail hunting with dogs.

Not fox hunting. That was banned by Labour in 2004. But Tony Blair's government permitted trail hunting, where hounds follow a scent that has been laid across fields and ditches, with horses and huntsmen in fast pursuit.

It sounds innocuous, possibly even futile. But activists who hate hunting allege that some foxes are inadvertently or deliberately chased, and sometimes killed, though no definitive numbers have been produced. Hunting folk privately admit that this sometimes happens.

We're not talking big numbers, though. Possibly a few hundred foxes (who are, remember, pests that kill lambs and chickens and anything else they can get their teeth around) each year.

If Sir Keir Starmer were a wise politician he would try to reassure voters in the countryside, writes Stephen Glover

Labour has confirmed it intends to ban trail hunting - but there has been a strong backlash among rural communities

Is it politically worthwhile, or indeed morally defensible, to drive hunts out of business (which according to their defenders contribute £100million a year to the rural economy) while destroying a way of life enjoyed by thousands of people? And all for a few hundred foxes?

If Labour gets its way, many hunts in England will give up the ghost. In Scotland, where trail hunting was outlawed by a mean-spirited and urban-minded nationalist government in 2023, nearly half of hunts have already closed.