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

[Coolasfeck]

JC openly admitted to becoming a farmer to avoid IHT. Why do farmers think having him as the figurehead will help them? Just because he’s off the telly doesn’t mean ordinary people will support him. It makes them all appear to be out of touch millionaires.

Feels like a spectacular own goal. Either that or the media is setting them up by making him the focus.

Quote from Sky News:

‘Those generous reliefs have made agriculture an attractive investment for those seeking to shelter wealth from the taxman.

Clarkson, the UK's highest profile farmer - and opponent of the government's plans - said as much when promoting his Amazon series about becoming the proprietor of Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire.

"Land is a better investment than any bank can offer. The government doesn't get any of my money when I die. And the price of the food that I grow can only go up," he told the Times.

Mr Clarkson is far from alone. Private and institutional investors, along with so-called "lifestyle" farmers funding purchases from previous careers, like the former Top Gear presenter and his Oxfordshire neighbour, the Blur bassist Alex James, now dominate agricultural land purchases.’

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/whats-the-beef-with-farmers-inheritance-tax-13256257

And yes, he's still a knob.

Clarkson doesn't represent the average farmer.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Imagine his annual tweet on results day 😂😂

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.

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.

But all of that is irrelevant because your opinion of him doesn’t change anything. I think he’s so wealthy the money doesn’t bother him.

Grouse moorland is shocking for biodiversity because it is managed to be like that.

I’m sure that is true but were grouse shooting to be banned, would the moors be reforested?

Be fair though, it's not just so he can avoid death duties - it's also so he can play with his quad bikes.

He has genuinely learnt farming skills. He’s a farmer who works on his farm. Why is that so difficult to understand.

Not really. He's still playing around, witness the nonsense of purporting to try to sell nettle soup at £10 a carton. In the last series he claimed to have invented something to keep piglets safe which has been around for years.

The whelping rails did make me laugh.

We had them for breeding dogs over 10 year ago.

Why shouldn’t they be tax exemptions for essential goods and services. Labour have fucked up big time. Increase taxes on luxury items, not basic food production.

We are an island - and just like in previous world wars it would be very easy for an enemy to completely cut us off receiving food imports, and we will all be asked to farm any land we have. Given the instability in Europe it’s very short sighted to piss off the people who feed us.

I live in a green belt (house is over 100 years old) and I am surrounded by farm land, traditional sports (like shooting), there is so much heritage and culture here, it’s an amazing place to live. IHT will just ensure that all of that will disappear within a generation after the real greedy fuckers (giant corporations) buy up all the land and farm it to death, reducing the quality of food, whilst no doubt putting up the prices too.

If you are genuinely interested, there is much campaigning in Scotland against the environmental and social damage of grouse moors https://revive.scot/

In a nutshell, many large landowners do not necessarily manage their land in a way that is good for locals, the environment or the planet.

No one's opinion on here changes anything.

The tax does bother him because he's selfish and greedy. He should go to his local foodbank and tell them all his woes.

Yep let's carry on the attacks on these greedy callous capitalist farmers. You know what? Clarkson at least doesn't try to hide who and what he is. And the fact he's there brings publicity which is much needed. I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of people who have never set foot on a farm longer than a petting zoo setting out the evils of farming. Keep it up. If the shelves aren't empty now they soon will be. Those empty fields will soon be home to your affordable (not) housing. And your food will be chemically induced chemically created junk and the world will wail what is wrong with our health why are we sicker than ever. And the answer will be this. Sickened.