Your leading article on November 13 concerned the Countryside Land and Business Association and its new president Ross Murray, and it makes the outrageous claim that “in politics today lobbying ministers has gone from a dark art to a legitimate and indeed vital part of our democratic process.”

Surely the opposite is the case, lobbying ministers is still a dark art which is anti-democratic and potentially corrupting. It occurs behind closed doors so how can anyone assess its legitimacy?

It is hard to see how democratic principles apply to landowning in England and Wales where 33,000 CLA members own half the land. At a local level landowners have far more power than any elected representative, and their power is without any democratic accountability.

It is good to know that Mr Murray is concerned about the need for affordable rural homes (also WMN Nov 13). A major factor in the high cost of houses is the high cost of the land due to speculation and the way in which land value shoots up as soon as its use changes, through the planning system, from agricultural to residential, enabling landowners to gain hefty unearned profits. Profits that under a fairer system should revert to the community whose needs and activities serve to create the land’s value.

If Mr Murray could persuade his members to this view he would help solve the rural housing crisis. If not then Winston Churchill’s view will remain as true today as when he stated it over a century ago:

“Land monopoly is not the only monopoly but it is by far the greatest of the monopolies – it is a perpetual monopoly and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly.”