So after WW1 the UK had a lot of debt which needed to be paid for. If my understanding is correct one way that this was paid for was to increase taxes on the landed gentry and other rich people. This is a major theme on Downton Abbey and I have to wonder did Lloyd George and others purposefully put excessive taxes in order to create social change and to cause “great families” to lose their power?
Just class conflict of the early 20th century. George had already passed the People’s Budget in 1909/1910* which was overall to the advantage of lower class people and the disadvantage of richer people and landed gentry. Around the same time, there was the start of permanent income tax in the US**. And then there was what was brewing in Russia.
There was even a threat of packing the House of Lords reminiscent of FDR’s threat to pack the Supreme Court.
Perhaps others can inform as to similar political phenomena in other countries but there seems to have been a general sense of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, either as a way to avert communism or as a first step towards it.
Globalization was already hurting the landed gentry badly by then, as it was becoming cheaper to import food from the Americas.