LONDON, ENGLAND – JUNE 09: Jeremy Clarkson during the “Clarkson’s Farm” photocall at St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel on June 09, 2021 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)
Clarkson’s Farm lays bare the realities of life in what should be the Tory heartlands, from post-Brexit subsidies to the Kafkaesque nightmare of the planning system, says Will Cooling
If the Church of England was once the Conservative Party at prayer, then farming was the party at work. The party’s traditional heartlands across England are the very rural areas dominated by agriculture, whilst even many urban Tories possess an emotional attachment to the countryside.
It’s therefore not surprising to see one of Britain’s most famous right-wing media personalities and neighbour of former Prime Minister and current Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, be reborn as Britain’s most famous farmer. Now into its third season, Clarkson’s Farm depicts Jeremy Clarkson’s attempts to learn how to actively manage the farm that he had previously been the passive landlord of.
In doing so, the series shines a light on the trials and tribulations of Britain’s farmers, and that makes grim viewing for the party that should be their natural champion. A drumbeat throughout the series has been the looming danger posed by changes to farming subsidies following our departure from the Common Agricultural Policy, with the second season particularly dominated by Clarkson repeatedly talking about how these cuts risk bankrupting him and other farmers. Brexit also rears its head at other points, as various people talk about produce or equipment imported from the continent being stuck in customs. And the deal with Australia, the Government’s flagship post-Brexit free trade agreement, is dismissed as a “disaster”.
Of course, unlike Clarkson, many if not most farmers voted Leave in the referendum. That makes it even more strange that the government has been so dismissive of their concerns. Worse, the Government’s proposed solution that farmers diversify their income streams to negate the need for subsidies, is frustrated by what we might call the deep state. Attempts by Clarkson to run a farm shop or open a restaurant are repeatedly undermined by council objections, rooted in a planning system that makes it impossible for small businesses to do anything but meekly comply, given an appeal could easily cost £500,000. The planning application for the restaurant in particular reveals a Kafkaesque nightmare, with a squabbling multitude of public bodies each raising objections, with conflicting demands for mitigations.
And this is just one area where we see just how total the Tories failure to cut red-tape has been over the past fourteen years, with every aspect of farm life not just highly regulated, but those regulations enforced by distant bureaucrats who can often be extremely difficult to contact. Many of these regulations undoubtedly help protect people, but it’s hard not to sympathise with Clarkson as he struggles to register his new calves through an automated phone system.
The Tory Party sometimes seems to think that it can hide from these failures by running on the culture war, yet this too is doomed to fall flat. Clarkson often gently mocks the lack of diversity within the farming world, although whether it’s the chilli chef or beekeeper, the series goes out of its way to highlight how Eastern Europeans have become integral members of the local community in West Oxfordshire. Likewise, whilst everyone swears freely, the homophobic or sexist humour that still occasionally reappears in the car programmes Clarkson makes for Amazon, is completely absent here.
And while Rishi Sunak assumed there would be votes in standing up for motorists and delaying net zero, Clarkson’s Farm is remarkably indulgent of environmentalism. When battling the weather, Clarkson is often mocked for having brought about the bad weather through his past climate change scepticism and in the third season, he even experiments with new regenerative farming practices to reduce the use of artificial chemicals. Even his occasional broadsides at activists such as Greta Thunberg should give Tories pause, because nobody else is online enough to know who she is.
Clarkson’s Farm is reality television and the producers will undoubtedly have their thumbs on the scale in numerous ways. But it captures the reality that we have seen repeatedly in local elections and the opinion polls; the Tory Party has let down its core vote and its confused attempts to win them back are falling flat. It’s therefore no surprise that the council which is so frequently Clarkson’s antagonist, has passed from Tory to Liberal Democrat leadership during the making of the programme.
Will Cooling writes about politics and pop culture at It Could Be Said substack
Want to know why the Tories will lose? Watch Clarkson’s Farm
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09.05.2024
LONDON, ENGLAND – JUNE 09: Jeremy Clarkson during the “Clarkson’s Farm” photocall at St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel on June 09, 2021 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images) Clarkson’s Farm lays bare the realities of life in what should be the Tory heartlands, from post-Brexit subsidies to the Kafkaesque nightmare of the planning system, says Will Cooling
If the Church of England was once the Conservative Party at prayer, then farming was the party at work. The party’s traditional heartlands across England are the very rural areas dominated by agriculture, whilst even many urban Tories possess an emotional attachment to the countryside.
It’s therefore not surprising to see one of Britain’s most famous right-wing media personalities and neighbour of former Prime Minister and current Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, be reborn as Britain’s most famous farmer. Now into its third season, Clarkson’s Farm depicts Jeremy Clarkson’s attempts to learn how to actively manage the farm that he had previously been the passive landlord of.
In doing so, the series shines a light on the trials and tribulations of Britain’s farmers, and that makes grim viewing for the........
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