Arable Farmer. Off the farm- motorsport, music and rugby. All views are my own etc. No Fendts, or cross-slot.
Hertfordshire
Joined March 2012
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Andrew Watts retweeted
As in the civil service, so too in the church it seems. Endless bloat in overmighty back office bureaucrats at the expense of frontline delivery
‘The Church has increased its administrative staff by nearly 80 per cent in 20 years while the number of parish priests has almost halved..’
The administrators truly are plenteous, but the clergy are few; Pray ye therefore the Bishops will open their eyes.
telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…
But ‘we’ weren’t told it would be brought in either
🗣️ “What I do not want to do is overinflate expectations that it is definitely going to happen because we have not been told that.”
@NFUtweets president Tom Bradshaw has urged caution over hopes of further changes to the family farm tax in next week's Budget.
Speaking to Farmers Guardian, he questioned whether another concession was politically possible, despite believing the Prime Minister understood the industry's concerns.
He also said the Government could quite easily admit it had got the policy wrong, given the relatively small amount of revenue involved.
Read the full interview: ow.ly/gt7C50ZZJyp
interesting article in today’s @thetimes about the 71%
decline in hedgehog numbers between 1981 and 2023. Only a small mention of badgers, their main predators, which became a protected species in late 1973 - surely some sort of correlation?
Andrew Watts retweeted
Among the many, many stories of disappointment from yesterday's SFI debacle, a notable casualty was the @Gameandwildlife @AllertonProject 's unbroken run of agri-environmental schemes since the '90s. Especially ironic given the research behind so many SFI options took place there
‘352 minutes that will live in infamy’.
My blog on the scramble for SFI26.
gwct.org.uk/blogs/news/2026/…
Andrew Watts retweeted
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos,”
Bank of England’s former Chief Economist, Andy Haldane.
thetimes.com/article/19965fd…
Andrew Watts retweeted
This is pretty much nonsense
The wet green bits are great
But don’t produce food
The land that does, a few metres out, is brown and burnt off with drought
The green bits don’t make it OK
Far more important would be how to make those fields more resilient…
Andrew Watts retweeted
When the people slagging off the media for doing their job include Zack Polanski, Jolyon Maugham, Zara Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn, Hacked Off, Labour MPs who want Leveson 2, That Islamist with his lists of erring hacks, Zia Yusuf and Nigel Farage - and those slagged off include the Times, the Telegraph, the Mail and the Guardian - it is possible to conclude that the media is indeed doing its job properly
Andrew Watts retweeted
Source: France 24. This is just not correct. Even if wheat doubled in price (100% increase) the value of wheat in a loaf of bread would only increase by 10pence.
Yet again others are capitalising at the expense of primary production share.google/rdmDJsBaX5siugU…
Andrew Watts retweeted
🔥 🔥 WATCH 👀 This is dynamite from former Clacton MP Charles Watling.
“I said about 14 years ago that Nigel Farage was the most dangerous man in British politics, and he has proved to be so.”
Watling then points to the extraordinary irony:
Farage spent years campaigning for Brexit, taking Britain out of European asylum arrangements and now uses the Channel crossings crisis as political fuel.
Create the problem. Campaign on the consequences.
Andrew Watts retweeted
The result of the Clacton by election should be known by the early hours of Friday morning, with a victory for Nigel Farage looking likely. So for those counting down to the big moment - that makes it just 36 hours until the Parliamentary investigation into Nigel’s £5 Million gift can get back to work
Petition to stop the early release from jail of PC Andrew Harper's killers - Sign the Petition! c.org/HdGGTsWBGh via @UKChange
Andrew Watts retweeted
With 3 days to the deadline, HMRC’s MTD IT ‘service’ is ‘currently unavailable’. This whole exercise is a case study in unnecessary time and cost to business owners. @JohnHealey_MP
Andrew Watts retweeted
There is no prosecuting authority capable of bringing these criminals to justice, the @EnvAgencyAnglia won’t do it , the law specifically states that it is not the job of the police and local councils do not have the resource and if they do fines are never paid.
Andrew Watts retweeted
Fertiliser tax still looming for the UK next year, meanwhile the EU is looking after its farmers, postponing the tax and giving member states flexibility to be able to give support!
So the question is: 10 years on, what have UK farmers gained from Brexit? 👇
EU adopts fertiliser support measures for farmers
agriland.ie/farming-news/eu-…
Andrew Watts retweeted
7 years ago our 5-yr rolling average wheat yield stood at 9.73t/ha - largely static over many years. Roll on to 2026 and the 5-yr average has plummeted to an estimated 8.23t/ha. If it was just us I would be worried. If our experience is repeated widely, we all need to be worried
Andrew Watts retweeted
50% of the budget has now been allocated due to pent up demand. The allocation is woefully inadequate
£56.25 million allocated in under six hours - this shows that farmers' ambition to invest in nature & farming is not yet being met with sufficient budget from government to achieve their full potential @angelaeagle @JohnHealey_MP Food & nature are vital for health @andyburnham!
Andrew Watts retweeted
You are an expensive joke @BASISRegLtd
I have spent around 20 years on the BASIS professional register, describing BASIS as incompetent would be too kind!
Can you please give someone's head a wobble @HendersonAgri ?
