Jeremy Clarkson has unleashed a blistering attack on the BBC and the newly elected Labour government while on stage at Tuesday’s farmers’ protest in Westminster.
Thousands of farmers accompanied Clarkson on the streets of the capital to protest against the so-called “tractor tax” measures outlined in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Budget last month.
Kicking off his speech, Clarkson was met with raucous applause by the farming attendees as he began: “I am not supposed to be talking but we have got a few things to say. I am going to start with a bit of honesty.
“I lived in London for 25 to 30 years and when I was here, like a lot of people who live in cities and go on Twitter, I thought farmers drove around in Range Rovers, moaning, until February and then you all went skiing.
“And then about five years ago I started farming and I have come to understand just how unbelievably difficult it is and complicated and dangerous and cold, very cold. Even when we’re harvesting it is cold.”
He went on to add that the cost of running the farm staggered him, giving an example that a medium-sized tractor cost £200,000, with a combined harvest costing half a million.
The Diddly Squat Farm owner continued: “You get people saying ‘Well I didn’t pay that. I can get a chicken from abroad’. Yeah you can, but it is so full of chlorine it tastes like a swimming pool with a beak.
“And then you have the environmentalist endlessly shouting at you. ‘Oh your cows, they’re contributing to the composition of the gasses in the atmosphere and your fertilisers are ruining the trouty freshness of our streams and rivers’ and I know sometimes you just think what is the point?
“We’re just trying to make breakfast, lunch and dinner it is just this endless whining with money in it. And the regulations, some of you down there will know what I am on about.”
Clarkson went on to mention Rachel Reeves’ budget outline which was the main cause of today’s protest, leaving the audience to boo loudly.
The former Top Gear presenter continued: “I know a lot of people all across the country, all walks of life took a bit of a kick on the shin from the budget. You lot got a knee in the nuts and a light hammer blow to the back of the head.
“We had pickup trucks being reclassified as company cars, 211 per cent tax rise there. £50 carbon tax on a bag of fertiliser. The basic farm payments altered in such a way, that we are getting a lot less than we thought we were going to get.
“Rachel Reeves has told us that 72 per cent of farms are going to be unaffected by this, and I have just been interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire for Newsnight. Let’s see if we can educate her here.
“How many people are from a family farm? Right, I hope we can see that, and we have our cameras from the show to see. That is a lot of hands. I want Newsnight to see that.
“Nobody is going to be affected’, Rachel Reeves said so. Since when was the BBC the mouthpiece of this infernal government?”
Laughing at his own comment and realising he was getting too passionate, he drew back and concluded: “I have got to get the breaks on. The trouble is I am off my t**s on paracetamol up here, I don’t know what I am saying.
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“I want to finish with a message to the government. For the sake of everybody here, and for all the farmers who are stuck at home paralyzed by a fog of despair on what has been hoisted upon them.
“I beg of the government to be big, to accept this was rushed through, wasn’t thought out and it was a mistake. Admit it and back down.”
