As a new Farmer myself who bought our farm 4 years ago, I can’t tell you how accurate Clarkson’s Farm actually is! We spent £3.5m buying our farm and subsequently in the past 4 years we’ve had to spend at least £527,000 on farm machinery and much, much more on running the farm. We’ve lost money every year since so far, and have had challenges or refusal from local authorities everytime we’ve tried to diversity, or do something to generate extra income. I cannot stress how difficult it is for farmers who have to rely on farming for their only income. We don’t get any subsidies or BPS payments at all (because we’re new farmers) and the grant system might as well be in Greek! As a CEO and professional businessman of some note, I felt I could easily apply for the grants myself. I kid you not, you’ve never seen a more complicated form - for ANYTHING! The farm we bought had been in the same family for 3 generations, but it was sold because it was getting tougher to support the farmers growing family and now I’ve been in it for 4 years I can see why. It’s a crying shame that more and more food is going to be imported and more skills lost because, for some unknown reason, the government obviously don’t value farmers. Sad.

Parece que anda a circular pela Rússia uma anedota que conta mais ou menos isto: Um dia, o Putin visita uma escola e dá uma palestra sobre como o governo russo é excelente e como a Rússia é o melhor país do mundo. No fim da intervenção, convida o público a fazer perguntas. Um aluno levanta-se e diz: “Olá, o meu nome é Sasha e tenho duas perguntas”. O Putin responde: “Ok, podes perguntar”, e o Sasha diz: “Porque é que a Rússia invadiu a Ucrânia? E porque é que ainda não ganhámos a guerra?”. Nesse preciso momento, toca a campainha e toda a gente vai almoçar. Depois do almoço, a sessão de perguntas e respostas continua e outro aluno levanta-se. “Olá, o meu nome é Boris e tenho quatro perguntas”. “Sim?”, diz o Putin. “Porque é que a Rússia invadiu a Ucrânia? Porque é que ainda não ganhámos? Porque é que a campainha do almoço tocou 20 minutos mais cedo? E onde está o Sasha?”

Almost everything in this country is now a taxable event, complete with an ever growing mountain of paperwork and administration. The tax take is on track for its highest level since the Second World War. The OBR forecasts it rising every year out to 2030, into what one of its own committee members has called "uncharted territory." Public spending sits at around 45% of GDP. Almost half the economy is now state, in one form or another. And still, the prevailing message from government is that things are under-taxed. Buying a house: stamp duty. Inheriting one: inheritance tax. Building and subsequently selling a business: capital gains, raised in the October budget. Inheriting a farm or a family firm: APR and BPR capped at £1m from April 2026. Hiring: higher employer NICs on a lower threshold since April 2025. Dividends. Pensions. ISAs above the cap. Trust transfers. All taxed. Mostly taxed more. Then there are the duties. Alcohol duty up with RPI in February 2026, on top of the 3.65% rise in February 2025. Tobacco. Air Passenger Duty. Insurance Premium Tax. Soft drinks levy. Vape duty incoming. Then there is the regulation. The Home Builders Federation puts the cumulative tax and policy changes on housebuilding since 2020 at £76,000 per new home. Building regs. Biodiversity Net Gain. Future Homes Standard. Section 106. Building Safety Levy. Nutrient neutrality. Landfill tax. Affordable housing contributions. Completions in 2024/25: 208,000. Down 16% from the 2020 peak. The same compounding load now sits on every venue with a door and a licence. One pub closes a day. One nightclub closes every two days. A third of UK nightclubs have disappeared since 2020. A quarter of British towns no longer have a single one. 40% of operators expect to close within six months. Average pub rateable value is up 30% in the 2026 revaluation. Business rates for the average pub up 76% over three years. Employer NICs up. Living wage up again from April. The dance floor itself is now effectively taxed out of existence. The result is exactly what you would expect… Houses don't get built. Farms don't change hands. Businesses don't expand. Founders defer or relocate. Hiring stalls. Capital sits. The high street closes, one shuttered venue at a time. And the tax and regulation conversation is not slowing. It is ramping up. In the space of a single week, two senior Labour figures have briefed the next round. Wes Streeting wants capital gains tax aligned with income tax, taking top rates from 24% to 45%, estimated at £12bn a year. Andy Burnham wants a land value tax he claims could raise £35bn, on the basis that British land is "under-taxed." The Treasury is already collecting more, in more places, than at any peacetime point in modern history. The political class is now openly competing on what to tax next. Every new proposal freezes a fresh part of the economy in anticipation. This is more than friction. It's the deliberate, line-by-line pricing of inaction over action. Every shuttered venue, every unbuilt home, every founder on a flight out is a tax receipt the Treasury will never collect. Yet the answer seems to be… more tax and more regulation. What was Einstein’s definition of insanity again?

British comedians mock President Trump's Easter message on #HIGNFY Chris McCausland, "Has there ever been a bigger u-turn than we're going to liberate the people of Iran from an oppressive regime, to, we're going to obliterate an entire civilisation" Ian Hislop, "On Easter day Trump compared himself to Jesus, and then let other people suggest he was the messiah" Chris McCausland, "How did he compare himself to Jesus?" Paul Merton, "Similar height" Ian Hislop, "Trump said they call Jesus a king, they call me a king. Well that's a nice Easter message" Paul Merton, "Perhaps we can keep the parallel going and crucify him"

I was a kid when playing on the estate where I lived was the norm. Summer was for riding my bike and playing in the garden. A trip to the seaside was like a big lottery win. I'd drink coke and eat crisps in the pub garden whilst my parents sometimes had a drink in a pub. Sunday lunchtime was when we all sat around the dining table. Saturdays meant a trip into town to do some shopping. Television was worth watching. There were very few cars parked in my street. Doctors would make house calls. No-one had a cheeseburger 🍔 delivered to their homes. Music 🎶 was great. I played football ⚽️ in the park with my brother. We didn't carry knives with us when we went to school. Fish and chips were affordable. Newspapers were worth reading. Cadbury's chocolate was delicious. Easter didn't offend people. Mail was delivered twice a day. We said please and thank you. CHAVS and hoodies didn't exist. Money went further. When it was hot outside it was because the sun was shining, and not global warming. We put all of our rubbish in one metal dustbin. Britain was British. I could go on, but I think you get what I'm trying to say...

Hospitality is the network of society, it knits us all together, it runs so much deeper INCLUDING ag-the veins it supports. Ag is in the same position. Allied industry now suffering due to ill-thought out policy. The knock on effect of this calamity @UKLabour gov runs SO deep

I don't often share my own emotions here. I mostly stick to facts and reason. But I'm actually a very emotional person. The situation in Kyiv with freezing people in cold homes that are left without electricity, heating and water during the cold winter after deliberate Russian attacks is simply terrible. The most vulnerable, the weakest, the old, the sick, the tiny kids and their parents - these suffer the most. They have nowhere to go or they simply can't move. A lot of people have nothing apart from those cold walls. Their suffering doesn't help Russia reach any military goals. Ukraine will not fall, the frontline will not collapse. Ukraine is still a large and strong country. What Russia does and what it is able to do is cause great suffering to average Ukrainians. Russia puts people on the brink of survival, makes people's lives unbearable. This is a tragedy of a huge scale and people who are surviving through this want to understand what this is all for. In almost four years of the full-scale war Ukraine demonstrates incredible resilience and bravery. An exhausted Ukraine is a direct threat to European security. A strong Ukraine means a protected Europe. Ukraine needs air defense and security guarantees.

❄️ “I had never before felt the fear of dying from cold” wrote my friend Inna from Kyiv. The temp in her bedroom dropped to 4°C, with ice on windows. This is Europe, 2026. This is what russia is doing to civilians. Don’t look away. Support your favourite charity today 🫂

Kyiv is in total blackout, as are many parts of Ukraine. No water, no heating, no electricity. Severe frost outside. This is the result of constant russian attacks. Thank you to those few who still care.

Kyiv residents share photos and videos on social media showing their freezing apartments and how they are trying to keep warm.

It is shocking how little coverage there is of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine due to Russia's destruction of its energy grid. It's -20C outside and half of the country experienced a total blackout today. Metro trains stopped operating in Kyiv and Kharkiv today. Rolling blackouts have been ongoing for weeks, often with no heating and running water inside people's houses. People get sick and die because of this. In the meantime, Russians laugh and call for more strikes to punish Ukraine for its unwillingness to surrender. These are strikes affecting millions of civilians amid the harshest winter in decades. These are crimes against humanity that Russia is confident it will get away with. We cannot let that happen

As someone who’s a US veteran but half British, I’ve got some shit to say. During my 10 years in the Navy and Army I’ve spent a lot of time working close with NATO operatives from all over Europe. The British soldiers used to always make fun of me because I had a US flag on my shoulder, always being told (you’re In the wrong uniform). Until 2009 when I was in Afghanistan operating medevac flights from Bagram to Ramstein and we had about 60 UK soldiers being flown back, missing limbs, almost fatal wounds and even a few deaths. That was when I realized that It didn’t matter of which flag was on our uniforms, we were all brothers and sisters fighting in the common enemy. 457 British soldiers lives were lost fighting a war we asked them to jump into and you know what, they did without fuckin hesitation!! That’s what you call a true ally. A true hero. And real brother in arms. So to that fat orange piece of shit who said that they were standing “a little back off the front lines” I want to remind all of his boot licking cult members that I have a friend who’s a former royal marine, that lost his left arm and right leg for being “a little back off the front lines” and even though he’s living his life with his family, he made the ultimate sacrifice. When I spoke to him today he wasn’t just angry, he felt betrayed. I reassured him that you don’t know how grateful we are. So to all who are laughing at this………. Go FUCK YOURSELVES!!! I couldn’t be more proud to serve my country during the hell that we went through in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but I couldn’t be more prouder than serving along side my NATO forces. Because if they weren’t there, I would probably be dead today!!! FUCK TRUMP ALL THE WAY TO HELL AND HIS BOOTLICKING ASSHOLE SIDEKICKS MAY THEY ROT IN PISS!!!!!

In a Chinese school, two teachers explained static electricity to students in a fun and engaging way. x.com/MarchUnofficial/status…

Scotland's Rewilding Failure 2003: Environmental groups celebrate a major victory in the Scottish Highlands. Large tracts of land are designated for "rewilding." The goal is to restore the landscape to "natural" conditions. Step one: Remove the sheep and cattle that have been grazing there for centuries. The theory is simple. Livestock are "unnatural." Remove them and nature will recover. What actually happens next is documented extensively, though rarely discussed outside specialist ecology circles. Year 1-2: Without grazing, the grass grows tall and rank. Coarse species dominate. The flower diversity that existed under grazing pressure begins declining. Year 3-5: Bracken invasion. Bracken is toxic to most herbivores, so it faced no natural check once livestock were removed. It spreads aggressively, shading out other plants. Biodiversity drops. Year 5-10: Scrub encroachment. Without grazing to control it, woody shrubs spread rapidly. This sounds good - "more trees!" - except it's the wrong kind of succession. Ground-nesting birds that need open grassland lose their habitat. Species like curlew, lapwing, golden plover - all declining. The tick population explodes. Without livestock to host on, they wait in vegetation for deer or birds. Lyme disease cases in surrounding areas increase. Fire risk increases dramatically. Ungrazed vegetation creates massive fuel loads. Summer fires become a serious problem where they were previously rare. Meanwhile, the soil isn't improving. Plant matter isn't being trampled in. No dung to feed soil microbes. The carbon sequestration that grazing provides isn't happening. Year 10 : The land is assessed. Biodiversity has decreased. The landscape is dominated by a few aggressive species instead of the diverse grassland that existed under grazing. The "rewilding" failed to restore what was there before livestock. It created something else - and something worse for most species. Ecologists quietly start reintroducing grazing. Sometimes with native breeds of cattle. Sometimes with Highland cattle specifically selected to mimic wild herbivore behavior. The land begins recovering. The diverse grassland returns. Birds come back. Flowers reappear. The lesson is clear: The British uplands evolved with large herbivores. Before cattle, there were aurochs. Before aurochs, there were other large grazers for millions of years. Removing grazing doesn't restore nature. It disrupts the process that built the ecosystem in the first place. But this story doesn't fit the narrative. So it's not publicized. Environmental groups continue campaigning to remove livestock from hills while the ecological evidence shows this makes things worse. "Rewilding" sounds natural. Until you realize the land evolved being grazed and removing that process is the actual disruption.

Mongolia: 64 million livestock. Sheep, goats, cattle, horses, camels. For a country of only 3 million people, that seems excessive. Environmental consultants from Europe and America regularly arrive to explain that Mongolia is overstocked and heading for ecological collapse. The Mongolian herders listen politely. Then continue doing what they've done for thousands of years. The steppes remain healthy. How? The herders never asked for advice because they already solved this problem about 3,000 years ago. The key is movement. Mongolian herders are fully nomadic. They move their livestock constantly, following ancient patterns that align with grass growth cycles and water availability. A section of steppe gets hit with intense grazing from a large herd. Looks devastating. Grass trampled. Soil disturbed. Dung everywhere. Then the herd moves on. And doesn't return to that section for months. The grass explodes back. Faster and thicker than if it hadn't been grazed. Why? Grazing stimulates tillering in grasses. One plant becomes five. The trampling breaks up soil crust and incorporates organic matter. The dung feeds soil microbes. But this only works with movement. Stay too long and you destroy the grass. Keep moving and you stimulate it. The Mongolian steppes are a carbon sink. The soil organic carbon levels are among the highest for any grassland on Earth. This is being built by 64 million livestock doing exactly what environmental consultants say causes desertification. Western researchers finally started studying this seriously in the 2000s. The data is clear: Nomadic grazing at high stocking densities maintains healthier grassland than low-intensity grazing on fixed ranges. The Mongols have been right for 3,000 years. The modern range science was wrong. There's a reason Mongolia's grasslands are still intact while American and Australian rangelands show degradation. Mongolia never adopted the Western model of splitting the range into paddocks and grazing each continuously at low density. They kept the high-density, high-mobility system that evolved with the landscape. Climate researchers studying carbon sequestration are now very interested in Mongolian grasslands. The carbon storage potential is enormous. And it's being maintained by the exact thing climate activists want to eliminate: Large numbers of livestock. The environmental movement doesn't publicize Mongolia's success because it contradicts the core message that livestock numbers must be reduced. Mongolia's response: They'll reduce their livestock when the steppes start failing. That hasn't happened in 3,000 years of herding, so they're not worried. The grassland knows what it needs. And what it needs is exactly what it's getting.

Wow!👇 If anyone had any doubts about the real issues about farm profitability, look no further than this film. Rather pertinent to @Minette_Batters report. We won’t see more profitability when the whole job is rigged worldwide! Time to rethink how we sell to the consumer??

John Deere got this video taken off our YouTube channel for two weeks. It took our lawyers reaching out to YouTube to get it back up. The video lays out how a handful of corporations took control of the entire agriculture industry, bankrupting farmers and screwing over America.

Worth a watch regarding fertiliser prices.

Farmers of the UK, do send Markus a quick email of support for his brave stand in favour of family businesses. markus.campbellsavours.mp@parliament.uk

What sort of useless country have we become when both parents work but can’t afford to get on the property ladder or afford to have children. This country has truly let hardworking patriotic people down. Shame on this country & shame on the people that run it. I hope you are satisfied with yourselves.