Rob Harrison

Wiltshire farmer Ann Maidment, 42, has brilliantly exposed the “ridiculous” government waste licensing system, by registering her prize cow Beau Vine as an official rubbish disposer. It took just five minutes online and cost £184. The Environment Agency approved it instantly. No ID, no business checks, no criminal record verification, just a tick-box promise of no environmental offences. Her family cattle farm in north Wiltshire has been repeatedly hit by fly-tippers dumping everything from asbestos to kitchen waste. Ann’s message is simple: “A system that cannot stop a cow cannot stop a criminal.” Fly-tipping now costs Britain £1 billion a year, with 1.26 million incidents last year alone, many carried out by licensed “carriers” who then illegally dump on rural land. Farmers are left with tens of thousands in clean-up bills while the system smooths the path for organised crime. Government now promises tougher checks… but the cow licence proves it’s been wide open for years.

I think that if you’re going to write a piece in the Times urging the government to use and boost more AI, the fact that you are paid by a major AI company should be in the first sentence, or at least first paragraph. I also think that the best scenario for AI is that it destroys millions of jobs with the prosperity, dignity and community that goes with them. The worst scenario is the destruction of the human race - a fear openly expressed by an increasing number of senior and experienced AI engineers who are leaving the industry. And somewhere in between a myriad of horrors such as yet more screen learning and screen addiction for our children. But I do see that it will make rich men even richer. And that’s the most important thing of course.

I've been investigating student loans, and there are shocking findings. How much money is missing? It is staggering. 'Value of loans where income could not be verified'? £12,801,872,323. This will be various types of graduates, but a vast percentage will be foreign students who have left without repaying their loans. I believe there is an industrial scam, where foreign nationals are able to claim loans and then abscond with no intention of ever repaying it. My questioning to ministers has uncovered that 'cases of misrepresentation in student finance applications' relating to migrant worker fraud has soared from 6 in 20/21 to 301 in 24/25. I believe there is a particular issue with Romanians. The 'Unique Number of Loan Borrowers' from Romania has gone from 25,046 in 19/20 to 78,325 in 23/24. This vastly outstrips any other country. Does that not sound alarm bells? Why are Romanians allowed to claim student loans? It should be restricted to British students and British students only. But just look at how much it's increased... I am urging Government to launch a full investigation. Billions and billions gone. Who’s accountable? Who’s been sacked? Where is the investigation? This is gross incompetence at best, industrial fraud at worst. There must be severe consequences. Let's ban foreigners from these loans, and use the savings to help scrap interest altogether on student debt for British boys and girls.

From the Nordics to India, Germany to China, countries are recognising the escalating threat to food security & stockpiling food & strategic reserves of seeds & fertiliser. The UK, meanwhile, hammers its farmers & looks to global markets to provide. ft.com/content/18d75e…

2025 was the warmest year on record in the UK. It was also the sunniest. The three warmest years on record are 2022, 2023 and now 2025. In case you’re wondering, the main reason is human induced climate change due to burning of fossil fuels. metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-…

If this years taught me anything, don’t let anyone borrow your tractor and make sure your insured with NFU. Also keep away from FUW insurance, at the end of the day you want an insurance who will pay out 🐮 #britishfarming #britishagriculture #tractor

Humans can't digest cellulose. It passes straight through us. Grass is 30-40% cellulose. 70% of Earth's agricultural land grows grass and not much else. Without ruminants, 70% of agricultural land produces zero human food. Cattle are the only way to convert that grass into nutrition we can actually use. They're not competing with human food. They're creating food from resources we physically cannot digest. This is the point everyone misses: Cattle aren't inefficient. Cattle are the ONLY way to make marginal land productive. You can't grow quinoa on Scottish highlands. The terrain is too steep, the soil too poor, the climate too harsh. But grass grows there. And cattle eat grass. Remove the cattle and you haven't freed up land for crops. You've just made 70% of agricultural land completely useless.

Wow!👇 If anyone had any doubts about the real issues about farm profitability, look no further than this film. Rather pertinent to @Minette_Batters report. We won’t see more profitability when the whole job is rigged worldwide! Time to rethink how we sell to the consumer??

This is absolutely f***ing mental "Annual average regular earnings growth was 7.6% for the public sector and 3.9% for the private sector" - ONS

78% of 🇺🇦 refugees in Poland live solely on earned income, refusing social benefits. They are firmly integrating into the #EU, generating❗2.7% of 🇵🇱 #GDP in 2024 and paying $414M in taxes. 8% own homes, half speak Polish, per @nbppl. Meanwhile, the average wage in Ukraine is only €549, significantly lower than €1,771 in Poland and €4,483 in Germany. Low labor productivity keeps this gap wide, reducing remittances and accelerating demographic decline. Ukraine cannot rely on “natural returns.” It must urgently review its economic strategy — from productivity to wages — if it wants to bring people home. #UkraineEconomy Photo: open sources

Need a special Christmas Present? Why not a voucher to make your own sneakers or a card holder out of fully traceable leather. See our January and February 2026 dates here: farmsneaker.com #leather #sneakers #pastureforlife

The Budget is fast unravelling, revealing the breathtaking serial dishonesty of the Starmer-Reeves government. In her Budget speech Reeves boasted that she was introducing a “new golden era for hospitality” as she outlined “permanently lower tax rates for over 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties”. She boasted that the new regime would deliver “the lowest tax rates since 1991” for high street pubs, shops and restaurants. What she failed to mention was the new, much higher assessment of the value of the buildings used to calculate business rates, meaning the levy will actually increase significantly next year for the average high street business. That was slipped out later. Nor did she mention that the 40 per cent discount on business rates, which many shops, pubs, restaurants have been benefiting from since the pandemic, ends in April. Taken together, these two changes more than wipe out any benefit from the reforms Reeves announced in the Budget. Some ‘golden’ age.

1) The Chancellor's 2025 Budget did nothing for growth and frozen income tax thresholds and raised income tax rates, breaching their manifesto. 2) The Employment Rights Bill is being amended by the Government to remove day 1 unfair dismissal rights for workers, breaching their manifesto Why are labour backbenchers criticising the government for 1), but not for 2)? The Treasury is doing much more damage to the Labour Party and its poll ratings than the Department for Business and Trade.

But it wasn’t Rishi Sunak who was lying was it

Work? TAXED Save? TAXED Pension? TAXED Buy a home? TAXED Sell a home? TAXED Buy a car? TAXED Drive? TAXED Eat? TAXED Drink? TAXED Shopping? TAXED Invest? TAXED Inherit? TAXED Spend your money? TAXED Die? TAXED All to fund illegal migrants, foreign wars and families on the dole

Something really close to my heart. SAVE OUR ABATTOIRS This is such an underrated problem. Your local butcher is disappearing. Here's why it matters to YOU. In 1990, the UK had 2,500 abattoirs. Today? Just 203. And 40% of those are at risk of closing. • 43% of farmers can't sell meat locally anymore • Animals now travel 30-60+ miles instead of 10 • FSA fees up 17.7% while 90% discount is threatened • 5 abattoirs closed in 2024 alone This isn't just a farmer problem - it's YOUR food security problem. When local abattoirs close: → Your local butcher loses supply → Small farms can't compete → You lose access to local, traceable meat → Big industrial processors win The government is blocking your access to local food. 🎯 TAKE ACTION: Contact your MP and demand permanent protection for small abattoirs. --- 📧 Business: radmorefarm@outlook.com #BritishFarming #FoodSecurity #LocalFood #Abattoirs #SupportLocalFarmers SOURCES: • DEFRA Abattoir Statistics 2024 • FSA Charging Scheme 2025 • Sustainable Food Trust Small Abattoir Reports • AHDB Transport Data 2023 • British Meat Processors Association 2024 Once these abattoirs are gone, they're not coming back. This is about YOUR access to local food. youtu.be/T4FHdNmeNWk?si…

I wish I was surprised. Buried in this Budget is a plan to slash the Digital Services Tax, giving a multi-billion tax cut to US tech giants and the likes of Elon Musk. That's right, cutting taxes for the world's richest man while hiking them for millions of hard-working Brits.

Shocked and appalled by the amount of comments labeling farmers as 'tax dodgers', and that they should 'sell up' for the UK to import all of its food. UK farmers pay Tax similarly to other businesses and individuals, covering income Tax, National insurance, Corporation Tax (if operating as a company), Capital Gains Tax, and VAT (if applicable). The main distinctions are in targeted reliefs, especially for Inheritance Tax (IHT), which helps to support the agricultural sector as a whole by allowing the transfer of farms for the next generation to work. If a farm is sold, Capital Gains Tax has to be paid on any realised profits. In 2024 the Agricultural industry contributed £14.5 billion to the economy and employed 452,900 tax paying workers. So farmers absolutely do pay taxes (and have done for hundreds of years), while currently providing 62% of all food consumed in the UK. What an honourable vocation. Thank you, Farmers. 🇬🇧

Funny how the police seem to be able to stop every type of protest or demo... just like they just stopped these farmers... But when it is antisemites protesting outside a synagogue - suddenly the police claim they have no power to stop that... Odd that.

This is an excellent piece about how farmers have been totally screwed in England, and how things look to be getting worse unherd.com/2025/11/could-…