Jeremy Clarkson has acknowledged an issue with his successful TV show, Clarkson’s Farm, as he continues to support the Tractor Tax protests.
Last week, the former Top Gear presenter, 64, joined the estimated 10,000 to 40,000 people protesting against the Labour government’s proposed inheritance tax hikes, which he has said could be “the end” for farmers.
Farmers are urging the government to reconsider its plans to impose a 20 per cent inheritance tax on farmers who have a business worth more than £1m.
Speaking toThe Times, Clarkson was asked whether part of the problem with the ongoing debate is that rural poverty is often hidden, meaning politicians and the general public are unaware of the hardships that farmers often face.
“Yes. And one of the problems we have on the show is we’re not showing the poverty either, because obviously on Diddly Squat, there isn’t any poverty,” Clarkson answered.
“But trust me, there is absolute poverty. I’m surrounded by farmers. I’m not going out for dinner with James Dyson. It’s people with 200 acres, 400 acres. Way past Rachel Reeves’s threshold. They are f***ed.”
He continued: “There was a girl that came to work on our farm earlier this year when Kaleb was away, she’s in her twenties. Her dad inherited the farm from his dad. She would like to inherit it from him. But there’s no money to pay her.
“So she works on the farm four days a week and then is a nurse for three days a week. She never goes on holiday. She never has a night off, can’t go out. She’s got no money to spend.
“It’s desperate being a farmer. I don’t know what the weather is like in London now. They’re out here in Oxfordshire in the pouring rain feeding their animals so that you and everybody else in the country can eat.”
Clarkson said the young woman in question has been learning “everything there is to know” about farming in the hope that she will one day inherit her father’s farm, but now faces an inheritance tax bill of £600,000.
“Where is that money coming from?” Clarkson asked. “The only thing she can do is sell the farm. So all that knowledge she’s accrued, gone. She’s on the scrap heap, the farm is on the scrap heap.”
Clarkson was also asked about documentaries in the Eighties that challenged politicians to live in cities on state benefits, and whether he would invite environment secretary Steve Reed to survive on his farm.
“Yes. I would like to have Steve Reed up to Diddly Squat and give him some jobs to do, when the pigs are giving birth and it’s so cold,” Clarkson responded. The other morning the only way Kaleb could stay warm is to put his hands in the cow’s mouth.”
The Grand Tour star was recently involved in a fiery interview with Victoria Derbyshire after the BBC presenter questioned whether he bought his Diddly Squat farm to avoid inheritance tax.
