By making Jeremy Clarkson their spokesperson, Farmers have shot themselves in the foot

I like him and I like his programme but I have to say I'm not sure he is helping here if he did infact say in 2021 that he bought land to avoid inheritance tax? Labour may actually be thanking him for proving their point.

Ive just seen his interview with Victoria Derbyshire. Holy shit, what a disaster.
I only watched his first series and enjoyed it, he highlighted a lot of difficulties farmers have, and was quite open that he couldn’t make it work without TV money.

Imagine his annual tweet on results day 😂😂

Grouse moorland is shocking for biodiversity because it is managed to be like that. Vast tracts of Scotland that are now desolate moorland were once forested, populated and farmed. Grouse shooting is terrible for the land and the local economy- it just makes some wealthy landowners wealthier. And money talks.

Love him or hate him. You’ve heard of him and his farm.

You’ve not heard of the local milk farmer whose family have been doing it 200 years and face a huge bill when it’s barely getting by anyway. Unless you genuinely are going to pay a lot more for milk and such.

The local lamb farmer who’s been slowly selling bits of land up because none of his children want the hassle for pence. None of the sold parcels being farmed either.

I don't like him because he's a racist aggressive arse who is throwing his toys out of the pram because he might have to part with some of his vast wealth. He also supports fox hunting.

I would like to build a business up with a few million and then be exempt from IHT when I passed it on

Irrespective of JC (who cleverly plays the fool and people seemingly believe it) there is a lot of kicking farmers on this thread. I don’t like it. I’m a poorly educated urban chav but I know that this is a bigger issue than individual farms and farming. It’s about food quality, food security, conservation, land management etc. It’s of national importance.

Surely law makers can create a covenant that means if farming families continue to manage the land in the same way, they’d qualify for a timed linked exemption? So as long as they farmed the land for the next 10 years or something they wouldn’t have to pay. If they sold within that time they’d have to pay either a proportion or the full amount of IT. Maybe I’m naive…

I was wondering if the big push for speedy assisted dying was to help farmers die before new inheritance tax.

No kidding! It is not helping anything to have him spouting off.

Honestly, I think Clarkson could stand for PM and do quite well. He is basically Britain's version of Donald Trump.

Clarkson is marmite.
But good at the media side of life.

I think his show has shown just how hard farming is and why we should leave it to the experts.

We need food security. More than we did during the second major disagreement.

I am a farmer and so is Clarkson. You just don’t like him because he stood up to Saint Victoria Derbyshire.

Clarkson doesn't represent the average farmer.

And yes, he's still a knob.

Clarkson doesn't represent the average farmer.

But Clarkson's farm is still being farmed. He's not just running it as a hobby, it's an actual working farm. I understand he bought it as a going concern, with a tenant farmer in situ, who ran it for years until he retired. Then Clarkson decided to have a go and make a telly prog, but he employs a lot of people and produces food.

He probably did buy the land as a tax-efficient wheeze, but that doesn't mean it's illegal. And the tenant farmer benefited from continuing to have a home and a livelihood until retirement.

He's raised the profile of farmers and how hard farming can be, at the whims of the weather and pests and legislation and council bureaucracy. And yes, a decent-sized farm may well be 'worth' millions on paper, but only if it's sold.

He has also set up mental health support for farmers. Suicide rates can be high given the pressures of farming, the opportunities for self harm, the likelihood of not being found and stopped. It's a tough gig.

I'm absolutely appalled at the comment upthread that land should be used for housing as it's more important than food, what the actual fuck? Sounds like an ignorant townie with no idea of what life is like for hundreds of thousands of people who don't live in cities.

Solar farms owned by the government/overseas investors - much of Wiltshire is heading that way

You are being totally and utterly unreasonable.

Clarkson might attend a Winter Fuel Allowance protest and he would get a lot of media attention because he is a well known TV personality. It doesn't mean he was chosen as a representative for pensioners ffs.

I take it you have simply decided all farmers are selfish rich bastards and this is your 'proof'.

I'm not even a farmer or landowner and I can use my open mind to work that one out. This country is really going to shit with attitudes like this.

Extraonions those photos are indeed shocking but they’re pheasants not grouse.

Clarkson is an unwelcome distraction to the farmers I know, no one asked him to be spokesman and he is not a real farmer - he is a farm owner. Kaleb is a farmer.

Just watching him being interviewed on the BBC and making a complete arse of himself. Not a compelling argument in sight.

Haven't read the full thread, so apologies if someone up thread has already mentioned this;
Clarkson with you love, loath or are totally indifferent to him is a journalist first and foremost. He says a vast number of things to raise an eyebrow and spark debate. When he chopped down a number of trees on his farm, he got a substantial amount of vitriol. Had he bothered to explained land management, to allow light through the canopy and reach the woodland floor to allow other funa and flora to thrive, he wouldn't have had so much vitriol aimed at him. He is deliberately provocative, I very much doubt he purchased his farm an IHT dodge.
You may not approve of shooting (I don't like it either) but if the pheasant, deer and rabbits are left unchecked they cause significant damage to a large number of out native species of flora. Of course if are ancestors hadn't removed the wolf, or introduced the rabbit or pheasant it wouldn't be an issue, but since humans have done this, it's up to us to manage it.
I completely understand the 'let nature take care of itself' which in theory is fine, but because the romans and subsequent generations of human have introduced alien species, it's not quite as simple as 'letting nature take care of it own.'.
Going back to the farming issue, I think as a society, we've become very removed from how our food is produced, whilst it's not surprising as our lives have changed so completely in the last 100years, long term it's not a good idea to destroy the hand that feeds us.

Having a media savvy person rant ? Cheap PR I would say.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/secret-photos-released-of-dozens-of-pheasants-dumped-into-a-pit-victims-of-uk-shooting-industry-10045528.html

Not forgetting this vile behaviour

https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2024/10/23/rspb-secretly-films-gamekeepers-plotting-then-killing-a-hen-harrier-on-a-grouse-moor-in-northern-england/

There are multiple instances of other species being killed, in order to keep grouse shoots going.

And .. they are paid subsidies … from our money ..for this barbarism

Luckily the weather shouod wipe them out .. stopped them draining and burning moorland