Guy Smith

@ChezBruce And very very good it was too 🍾🤩

Staying at this rather wonderful Somerset pub this evening. Dead excited. (Two lovely motors, sadly neither of them mine!)

Well goodbye X , I liked you when you were called twitter. It seems you're now @bluesky If you're on there come and say hello. guythegrape.bsky.social

@BarryHavenhand @JonathanPieNews @SeanDromgoole @susannahmh All sounds like perfectly normal day to me. That day you had the political editor of a national newspaper, a film editor that did Harry Potter and James Bond and a bone fide Lady amongst others. Same old same old.

@JonathanPieNews I said to a friend that I'd been speaking to a professor of choral conducting whilst harvesting grapes at a friend's vineyard, which should propel me straight into Pseuds Corner. Even my wife says I'm pretentious @Guythegrape @SeanDromgoole @susannahmh

This is the most middle class headline I have ever read.

@RevRichardColes I believe it's a Boaty Mcboatface.

A Fascist in charge with no checks and balances. It's the end of the America we've known in our lifetime.

Things have just got a lot more difficult . Here’s what I think . I had no control over what just happened . None . But I do have control over how I will react to it . And I am not going to give up on the beautiful and the good , the grip on my dreams just got tighter .

@joefattorini If my eyes don't deceive me he's sitting next to Chris Failing Grayling

Chris Whitty moonlights as a children's cartoon character in Sweden

I think @KamalaHarris is going to do it and with just enough votes to get a decent majority in the electoral college.

This is clever. @mrjamesob

@RachelSJohnson If it stops very wealthy individuals with little or no interest in farming buying up land to avoid IHT then it could be good. This practice inflates land values and if they fall then new entrants with genuine love of farming will no longer be priced out.

Is it really worth f*ckng family farms, undermining food security, forcing land clearances and fire sales of agricultural assets, breaking the continuity of generations of stewardship, just to raise a measly £500m to chuck into the black hole? Asking for farmers.

@joefattorini For what it's worth (which is not very much) I don't agree with the government. As an aside, what I do see is, younger people falling out of love with alcoholic drinks for all sorts of reasons and not just down to price. I don't think many people are addressing this.

@Guythegrape I'm not condescending to anyone. We've all done 60 hour weeks. You and I aren't anything special. I suspect we both know it. That may be what the government is thinking. In which case it's wrong. You can believe it's right. That's fine. We don't have to agree.

I wrote about the Budget. It's not pretty. May contain references to "clown cars". Among the various things that wouldn't get this tweet suppressed... open.substack.com/pub/joefattori…

@joefattorini Really? I have just voiced what I believe the government is thinking. I've done those 60 hour weeks so please don't condescend to me.

@Guythegrape Why are you even associated with the drinks busines if you loathe it so much? I genuinely can't understand this. Is it just "nice wines for wealthy people I approve of)? I know publicans - that's why I defend them.

@joefattorini @RathfinnyEstate I can't speak for The Drivers. I'm any event, if GB Wine is going to work, I think it's inevitable that wealthy individuals will be replaced by drinks businesses with global distribution networks.

@Guythegrape Are you genuinely telling me that the Drivers at @RathfinnyEstate have little interest in farming? Or any number of other smaller estates?

The UK is run by people who think food comes from "Waitrose". Who think the countryside is where you go to festivals. Who think owning land is oppression. Not a word of a lie - the Sunday Sport would have written a better budget.

@NoFarmsNoFoods @JeremyClarkson Surely farms will just be passed on earlier as gifts? If the gifter survives seven years then there's no IHT. Also, are land values inflated by tax avoiding super rich people buying with no interest in farming ? Lower values would help new entrants who are currently priced out.

@JeremyClarkson £1M farm value only reaches around 65-70 acres. So it doesn’t take much to work out the enormous inheritance tax that farmers will have to pay beyond that threshold. Most farmers don’t have spare cash. It’s tied up in the land value. This new inheritance tax band is devastating.

@wineschools I think the most important thing for growth is investment in R&D, training and climate change mitigation.

Such a shame wine got clobbered in the budget 😫 A budget for growth?! Hardly. It just leaves a bitter taste…which is why we needed to refresh our palates by tucking into these characterful, diverse, eclectic range to remind us why GB wine is great, and keep morale up 🆙 😋🥂

@JeremyClarkson If you're referring to the IHT on farming, taking out super rich people that have little or no interest in actual farming who buy land just for tax avoidance must be a good thing?

Rachel Reeves. I literally daren’t comment.

@joefattorini I do agree that owning land is oppression. It never leaves you alone, there's always something escaping, growing in the wrong place, not growing at all or breaking down 🙂

@Guythegrape Do you honestly believe that was the intention here? Incidentally, I suspect this will stall the English/Welsh wine business. The IHT exemption has made investing in (currently unprofitable) vineyards an attractive idea in the industry's start up phase

@DanielLambert29 Not really in the scheme of things.