Jeremy Clarkson made a surprise appearance at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, telling the audience that hot weather had made this a terrible year for farming. The Clarkson’s Farm star said farmers were under attack from every angle on costs, although he remained optimistic about the future.
Introduced on stage by the shadow environment secretary, Victoria Atkins, the former Top Gear presenter took part in a question-and-answer session with the land agent Charlie Ireland. He was met with loud applause and opened with a joke about the empty seats around the edges of the hall. Asked how his own year had gone, he said the farm had worked hard and ended up with roughly “three ounces of hen food”.
Clarkson, who also presents ITV’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, said the farming side of his business had been a disaster and acknowledged that other income, including newspaper columns, protects him in a way ordinary farmers are not. He named Iran, Ukraine, taxes and energy costs among the relentless pressures on the sector, and questioned why anyone would set up a business in Britain under current economic conditions.
A long-standing Conservative supporter, he took part in the campaign against the Labour government’s plan to apply inheritance tax to family farms, which former chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in Labour’s first budget. The policy was watered down last year after the farmers’ campaign and pressure from some of Labour’s rural MPs. Responding to his comments, a government source said ministers were working with farmers to strengthen domestic food production and make supply chains more resilient.
Clarkson also took aim at Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, who was reported to have told a Labour conference fringe event that a Britain of country pubs, warm ale and black Labradors was a nostalgic vision that never really existed. He joked that he must be a “socialist” because he drinks lager and owns two fox red Labradors.
