Enter Farmer Rish!. You might have thought Rishi Sunak was a typical member of the globalist metrosexual elite. Sharp suits and sharper elbows as he rode the Goldman Sachs gravy train to bet against sterling. A man whose main connection to the countryside was as a view to be enjoyed from the privacy of his own helicopter.
But no. It turns out that the prime minister is a man hewn from the soil. A sheep whisperer whose own circadian rhythms are in tune with the natural world. A politician who likes nothing more than to escape the grime of Westminster infighting to gaze at the unusable flooded fields that surround his constituency home while relaxing in his heated swimming pool.
On Tuesday, Sunak became the first prime minister to address the National Farmers’ Union conference since 2008. And only a cynic could possibly imagine it had anything to do with the Conservatives having realised their days of taking the rural vote for granted were long gone. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Tories are in a full-on panic. When they can’t count on the farmers – years of neglect and broken promises have seen to that – then a wipeout is on the cards.
So this year, Downing Street was in full love-bombing mode in Birmingham. The entire Defra team had been sent along to occupy the front row for this landmark event. Rish! even had to be dissuaded from going on stage in a brand new tweed suit and wellies. “But I want to show the farmers how much I care,” he had wailed. “To show that I am one of them.” Not sure that will quite cut it, he had been told.
Still, Sunak did have something going for him. He wasn’t Thérèse Coffey. Last year, the then environment secretary for whom everything is too much bother had been invited to give the keynote speech. From the Charm School Playbook 101, she had turned up late and then proceeded to insult her audience by telling them to stop moaning and try doing a proper day’s work instead. Coming from her! For the coup de grace, she had announced that she couldn’t be bothered to take questions as she had a train to catch. Sayonara, motherfuckers.
The conference had started with a speech from the outgoing president of the NFU, Minette Batters. She went down a storm. She always does. Batters has been a wonderful advocate for farmers over the years and she got an extended standing ovation. And no one clapped harder than Rish!. Because at heart he too was a farmer and he wanted to personally thank her for all she had done. Minette looked rather taken aback. Not sure whether to milk his applause or to wipe his residue from her suit jacket.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” Sunak began. Which was curious as the time was shortly after 11 in the morning. Maybe he had just flown in from his megafarm in Poland where he had been doing the milking before breakfast and his watch was still on eastern European time.
But everyone was too polite to point out his error, so Rish! slid easily into his rural fantasia. He loved farmers. He loved farming. The countryside nourished his soul. He liked nothing better of a weekend than to walk o’er hill and dale with only a ploughman’s lunch for sustenance as he recited Wordsworth’s Prelude to himself. “So thank you, farmers” and “I love you, Minette”.
Then Sunak put on his serious face. He knew that farmers had been having a difficult time. No one felt their pain more than he did. But he was going to make things better for them. Put right the damage caused both by the war in Ukraine and climate change. So let’s cut to the chase. He was going to offer them a bribe. He had mysteriously found an extra £220m from down the back of the sofa – don’t tell Labour this trick – and everyone was going to get a share. Everyone would be a winner. Food security and supply chain issues would be solved at a stroke.
“You can trust the Conservatives,” he said. A strange choice of language when you’re openly offering financial inducements. Not generally a sign of someone’s trustworthiness. “I have your back.” But was it enough for the farmers to have Sunak’s back? Had they been bought off? From the barely polite smattering of applause that followed his speech, I’d guess not.
There was then a brief question and answer session with Batters. No press questions were allowed and only two, pre-vetted questions from members of the audience. It was almost as if Sunak was terrified of getting ambushed. Had only agreed to come providing Minette took care of him. Took pity on him. He still seemed to be under the illusion that he was the one doing the farmers a favour by turning up to give a dull 10-minute speech.
And Batters did look after Sunak. Normally the NFU president is a terrier, completely uncowed by government ministers. She had almost ended Coffey’s career. But now she went out of her way not to ask anything tricky. To not probe too deeply. To allow non-answers to go unchallenged. This didn’t go down well with her audience. One farmer said it was an insult to them.
So the disastrous effect of Brexit on farming almost got missed. “It’s been a difficult period,” was all Rish! had to say on the subject. Really? This from a man who had sold Brexit as the golden ticket for all farmers. Surely Minette could at least have asked him to say sorry. All that Brexit has done for most farmers is leave them close to bankruptcy.
Instead the farmers were expected to be thrilled with scraps. A deal worth almost nothing with New Zealand. A frozen foods bonanza with Sweden. Sunak was dying on his feet and Batters was letting him get away with it. He even got panicked into mumbling about lettuces. The last thing anyone wanted was a reminder of Liz Truss. We were only seconds away from reliving Theresa May running through a wheat field.
Nor did Rish! have anything to say about farmers going uncompensated for allowing their fields to store floodwater. He was also silent on the ditching of a report entitled Pathways to Success for hill farmers after the investigators concluded there were no pathways. The Tory record on farming is a shocker and Batters let Sunak get away with it.
Rish! couldn’t wait to go. He had said too much. He hadn’t said enough. Just one last indulgence of his bucolic idyll. Nothing touched him more than to hear the oxen lowing among the verdant leas. There was a dry eye everywhere.
