It's been a terrible year for farming, Jeremy Clarkson tells Tory conference

Jeremy Clarkson addressed the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, describing the previous twelve months as a "terrible" period for farming because of blistery weather. Speaking alongside countryside advocate Charlie Ireland, he noted that farmers are facing relentless pressure from rising costs and told the audience, “farmers were being 'attacked' from each space by rising costs.” Clarkson recalled the difficulty of the season, saying, “We worked truly hard each twelvemonth and we ended up with, I deliberation I'm close successful saying, 3 ounces of hen food.” He added, “It was an implicit catastrophe connected the farming broadside but, I mean, luckily we've got different projects going connected now.” He stressed that farming remains “very, precise hard – very, precise hard astatine the moment.” He acknowledged his own financial safety net, stating, “I'm precise fortunate that I bash person different income streams and paper columns, but if you're an mean farmer, it's not conscionable the weather.” Clarkson warned that challenges come from many directions, repeating, “Remember, it's arsenic Charlie was saying, the attacks travel from everyplace – whether it's Iran oregon Ukraine oregon taxes oregon vigor costs – immoderate it mightiness be, it's conscionable relentless.” When asked why anyone would start a business in the current climate, he posed the question, “Why would anybody acceptable up a concern successful this state close now?” The former Top Gear presenter and star of Clarkson's Farm, who also hosts ITV's Who Wants to be a Millionaire, was introduced by Conservative shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins. He remarked that he received “large applause from the Tory faithful” before joking, “a batch of radical person travel dressed arsenic seats, I notice, astir the edges there.” Clarkson has long supported the Conservative Party and participated in the campaign against the Labour government's inheritance taxation plans for farmers. He noted that former chancellor Rachel Reeves had announced the government would levy inheritance tax on household farms in the party's first budget, but that the proposal was watered down following the farmers' campaign and pressure from some Labour agrarian MPs. He also referenced comments made by Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, who described the vision of Britain centred on warm ale, white Labradors and fox‑hunting symbolism as a “precise far-right nostalgic imaginativeness” that “we don't privation to have, (that) ne'er truly existed.” Clarkson responded in jest, saying he considered himself a “socialist” because he drinks lager and owns two fox‑red Labradors. All quoted remarks are reproduced exactly as supplied.