The good news at the Environment Department is they did grasp the big opportunity that leaving the EU offers when it comes to ending our involvement with the Common Agricultural policy. Over the years it inflicted considerable damage on the UK. It left us short of milk quotas, shrinking our dairy industry and forcing us to import more milk based products. It prolonged the hit from BSE on our beef cattle. It paid grants to get UK farmers to rip out orchards so we imported more continental fruit. It paid large grants to successful large scale arable farmers that w did not need to pay. The UK lost considerable market share in temperate foods. The Dutch took over our flower market and came to dominate salads, the Spanish the vegetables market, the Danes the pig meat market. Most of the CAP is being swept aside.
The not so good news is the delay in putting in a replacement, and the absence of strong policies to promote more UK food production. For a department which wants to be green there is a surprising lack of interest in cutting the food miles. There are no dedicated schemes to give grants to farmers to create the orchards we have lost or to put in competitive capacity to the Dutch green houses for market gardening. There are expensive schemes to take land out of agricultural use altogether to make us more import dependent for food.
The Department is promoting more tree planting., which is fine. It needs to encourage more sustainable forestry, as what we need to do is grow more of our own roof trusses and floors, more of our own biomass for power stations and wood for furniture production.
The Department is doing little to recreate a healthy and sustainable fishery run by UK based fishing vessels and crews.
January 7, 2022
Growing trees for trusses and floors all takes time and space for the trees to become mature enough for efficient and effective use.
In Spain the construction of properties is totally different and wood is one of the least used materials.
Should there not be research into the way we construct our domestic housing stock? More use of insulated pot and beam flooring, ideal when installing under floor heating. Enabling the ground floors to be raised for those properties being constructed in areas prone to flooding and high water tables.
With the shortage of skilled tradesman maybe more effective to build in factories properties in kit form using modern internal metal studding not wood? Promoting faster construction times to meet the demands of our ever growing population.
January 7, 2022
The Environment Department will also have to compete with lobbies who wish to build on agricultural land and remove the green belt.
I am not sure the Environment Department are clever enough to create schemes that would attract people back to enterprises that can be risky or not very rewarding. Milk production for example is not an area for much profit. Fishing is hazardous and requires considerable capital investment and skills.
January 7, 2022
The Milk Marketing Board used to be headquartered in Thames Ditton and guaranteed farmers a minimum price for milk.
Then milk was deregulated and the big supermarkets started turning the screw. Farmers made less on milk production and/or left dairy farming.
That said, I cannot see many on here wanting a return of something like the MMB. âFreeâ market is an article of faith that can never be questioned for some.
January 7, 2022
âFreeâ markets also bedevil so-called public utilities. Water, electric and gas are a complete shambles.
Government pig-headedness means they will never, ever admit that railway privatisation was a complete and utter failure.
reply We have an effectively nationalised railway with record losses.
January 7, 2022
âEffectivelyâ nationalised?
I donât think so.
There are franchisees who do as they please yet still receive subsidies. If it no longer suits they quit e.g. Arriva Wales.
January 7, 2022
The MMB worked well.
It regulated the market.
The mixed economy works OK when the right decisions are made.
January 7, 2022
Hmm… I will have to talk about that to ‘old’ farming friends up north, after years of strangulation on milk pricing, very few can survive dairy. Diversification is required away from milking. Supermarkets do a loss leader on milk but are killing farming.
January 7, 2022
Possibly because the MMB stopped in 1994.
January 7, 2022
@turboterrier; In Spain the construction of properties is totally different
Indeed, built differently due to a different climate, using different natural resources.
“With the shortage of skilled tradesman maybe more effective to build in factories properties in kit form using modern internal metal studding not wood?”
Some suggest I like to hark back to the 1950s, but even I would not want to go back to the era of the “Prefabs” or the “System Built”, I jest of course (I think, after all “System Built” did not end well, by the late 1960s…), but seriously many of the same skills are going to be needed whether new homes are built in factories or on-site. What we need to do is to encourage our youth to take up and learn these skilled trades, rather than invent ever more office jobs or ways to pour coffee & flip burgers.
January 7, 2022
Well people bombed out, or simply unable to find sufficient paying employment to be able to afford rentals were very grateful that the Prefab building period put an insulated modern home at their disposal.
January 7, 2022
Every house these days has pot and beam. Has done for the last 30 years.
January 7, 2022
O/T if as being reported on line news sites Ms Truss is going to back down over confrontation over NI with the EU then that should damage her aspirations to follow in the foot steps of Mrs Thatcher. The last thing we need now is another person in the top bowing to the EU, which also sends out the wrong signals to the civil service.
January 7, 2022
Two great posts Turbo.
January 7, 2022
Wasnât that the Boris plan; Tuss started to look good so he gave her âbrexitâ to fail
January 7, 2022
Glen. Yes the poison chalice
January 7, 2022
and ensuring any competitors are going to fail the mission impossible.
January 7, 2022
Remainer & Libdim Truss never looked good to me. I think Boris thought this – you put up socialist/net zero loon me or get the even worse the remainer dope and PPE Oxon. Truss.
January 7, 2022
I’m waiting for a government response to the claim that the EU mandated checks and controls on the goods being imported into Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK are unlawful:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/01/06/getting-brexit-done-2/#comment-1289470
âFarming minister Edwin Poots has confirmed he now believes checks on goods entering the Province from GB are unlawful, and has pledged that their days are numbered.â
If he believes they are unlawful he should order that they be stopped, immediately.
January 7, 2022
They’re not unlawful. They are required by the UK/EU Withdrawal Agreement, the oven ready deal approved by the British people at the Election of December 2019 and voted for by every single Tory MP in the Commons in January 2020. NOT to do the checks would be unlawful
January 8, 2022
The UK is a “dualist” state. Even the EU Parliament knows what that means:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2018/596831/IPOL_BRI(2018)596831_EN.pdf
“The UK is a dualist state, which gives domestic legal effect to international treaties only to the extent provided for in Acts of Parliament or other secondary legislation.”
The question here is whether the legislation to approve the protocol was sufficient, and you no more know the answer to that than I do.
January 7, 2022
‘…and has pledged that their days are numbered.â How many 1000s will that be?
If it was the EU that ‘organised’ the ripping up of our orchards did they do the same for French orchards? If not, did anyone in the UK govt. not say anything about that?
January 7, 2022
The excuse was that British apples were too small and did not fit the required EU size, which conveniently happened to be the size of French apples.
January 7, 2022
I prefer small apples myself even if I have to eat two sometimes. But perhaps that is just me. I also prefer a variety of sizes of fruit and veg. rather than all being the same. I even like bent cucumbers!
January 7, 2022
Do you remember the flood of the French sour green varieties dumped on us a few years ago? After an understandable boycott, and enormous numbers unsold it hasn’t been repeated, but pity the poor pigs who got given them- a bad case of upset tummy I expect.
January 7, 2022
All Brexiters – Davis, Frost, Boris, Truss – have to bow down to the EU when they have to negotiate in real time. Because the EU is far stronger than Brexit-weakened Britain. Itâs only you fantasists who have never negotiated in the real world who still think the UK has the upper hand. Maybe you still believe in fairies and Santa
Reply We have strong negotiating hand because we want less from the EU, not more.Mrs May’s stance was weak because she had a long list of things she wanted from them
January 7, 2022
I think, Sir John, that you are putting words into the mouths of the thousands of business people, who want more and easier access to their hitherto highly efficient and profitable market in the European Union than you seem intent on allowing them to have.
Yes, I know who you in fact mean by “we”.
January 7, 2022
Indeed. Why don’t you leave us patriots alone and hop over to your beloved EU, I’m sure they’ll welcome you with open arms.
January 7, 2022
don’t admit to being British – that won’t boost your chances, many countries still have a problem with needing to be rescued militarily – so they develop rules and laws to build barriers.
January 7, 2022
The words “bow down” give a glimpse of the true nature of the EU.
It started as a friendly free trade arrangement between democratic nations.
January 7, 2022
‘Reply We have strong negotiating hand..’ please give one or two examples of that, if you can.
January 7, 2022
An 80 billion a year trade deficit is one
January 8, 2022
Leave claim, when their economic arguments are exposed for the rubbish that they are, that it’s “not about money anyway”.
As far as the European Union is concerned that is absolutely the case however, so why should they care unduly?
It is perhaps the most ambitious project under the principles of The Enlightenment that the world has ever seen.
Concerns stemming from that will be paramount, therefore.
Reply There have been many willing and forced unions of European countries over the years.
January 8, 2022
Yes, Sir John, in the latter category would be that of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, with England.
That was hardly done under the principles of The Enlightenment though, was it?
January 7, 2022
In short, another mess made by the eco-loons. But what are the backbenchers going to do about it? Wait until we have a food-supply crisis like the energy-crisis? Johnsonism has to end. The casual disregard for our Balance of Payments has to end. I want my countryside producing food and safe from being built-over to accommodate our ever-rising, and increasingly alien, population.
January 7, 2022
So do I. However the British establishment desires the opposite.
That’s as plain as the nose on anyone’s face surely by now.
The likes of Sir John Redwood would do far more good resigning from the party than any good they can do within I think. In fact given the party trajectory has been obvious since Cameron days on many issues not least those you’ve mentioned, I’m cynical as to how and why they can bare to stay part of it given it flies in the face of all they supposedly hold dear. Not least England.
It all I suppose comes back to this silly nonsense of allegiance to a political party like a football team.
There should be no allegiance, especially when any given party promotes and carries out damaging policies which you are clearly against.
In fact reading much of Sir John’s Diary it seems more and more that he is at odds with them.
January 7, 2022
Indeed he is but without influence with the Consocialists what can he do? It’s clear now after 11.5 years that the Tory Party doesn’t do National Security. Energy generation and control of those company’s in the supply chain is a must, but Tory policy doesn’t follow suit. Allowing mass legal and illegal immigration with no deportations of people who in some cases have caused us considerable harm. Where are our English Human Rights to our own home, culture and freedom of speech and protection from those who want to cause us harm? All attacked by this Government and the rest in Westminster. There is not one area that the Tory’s can crow about after 11.5 years. From highest taxation, poorest education, longest health queues ever, overcrowding and congestion because of their insane policies. Biggest public debt with nothing to show for it. Still what a deal they negotiated with the EU where they allowed Northern Ireland to be subsumed into Ireland without a shot being fired, gave up our fish and agreed a bill of ÂŁ39 billion plus for nothing.
January 7, 2022
+1 Timaction. A truly appalling record and not all can be blamed on covid. The biggest failures of the conservatives go back to Heath’s days, and continued ever since where treaty after treaty was signed and more an more control handed to the EU, all without electoral approval. I fear we are being subtly guided back under EU control to keep the many undemocratic remainers in Parliament happy, but hope I am wrong.
As to Glens comment below …. if the political parties only put up woke remainer candidates then our choice is deliberately limited by what the political parties want the result to be. We suffered decades of only being offered pro-EU candidates, and we still suffer the consequences.
January 7, 2022
Whats happened to the once great Tory parliamentary party….is it really the members fault for choicing woke green MPs
January 7, 2022
Michelle -Re your second paragraph. No chance of that happening.
January 7, 2022
So do I. However the British establishment desires the opposite.
That’s as plain as the nose on anyone’s face surely by now.
January 7, 2022
Talking energy, SMR (Small Modular Reactors), much vaunted on this site. Most seem to think that an SMR is something like a 30 MW power plant in a submarine, not so; one will fill a Premier League football stadium.
“The Worldâs First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Is Sending Power to the Grid
As China bids to become the world leader in nuclear power.” (google “…”)
January 7, 2022
So it’s the same size of a football ground…is that a problem given it provides CO2 free power for a large town?
January 8, 2022
They also require quite highly-enriched Uranium.
You don’t just stumble upon that.
January 8, 2022
Obviously not NHL
PS
France gets 70% of it’s electricity from nuclear without you worrying too much.
Zero CO2 as well.
January 7, 2022
Good morning – again
And now it pays them not to produce any food at all !
This rewilding is designed to reduce meat production and promote vegetarianism. Not what people voted for.
January 7, 2022
Mark. As most of us know, land is better when grazed on by cattle and sheep. Our diet is best with a good mix of veg and meat. We are definitely being led down the route to veganism. YUK!
January 7, 2022
I always thought cow, horse and sheep poop fed the soil and stopped erosion?
January 7, 2022
The poo certainly improves the soil, and pigs nosing up the soil helps, whether that itself stops erosion is doubtful. You could make a case for deeper strong root growth of anything would improve erosion and take up of excess water.
January 7, 2022
But its paying their mates to do nothing….its the UK vision of the EU CAP
January 7, 2022
The CAP was returning ÂŁ3.5 billion (bn) of our membership fee every year, before we left. Germany got back ÂŁ5.2 bn; France ÂŁ8.2 bn. France is self sufficient in its food requirements. UK farming’s gross income was always claimed to be 50% from EU subsidies; considerably higher in Northern Ireland.
I doubt DEFRA’s Eustice is planning to spend the CAP equivalent sum rewilding. It appears he intends farmers to survive on market prices for their actual food and biofuel feedstock products; good luck with that. They would be better off farming Caravans; Camper Vans and Glamping Tents.
Simple land use chart at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/900974/Land_Use_in_England_2018__Fact_Sheet.pdf
January 8, 2022
Yes, there are many finding that providing paddocks for little darlings’ ponies is more remunerative than food production around here too.
That, and selling off little parcels of land to adjoining residential properties to use unlawfully as domestic curtilage at many times agricultural land prices.
If you know of any such gardens, then do let your local Planning Authority know.
January 7, 2022
You welcomed the trade deal with Australia yet you want to cut food miles. Your hatred of the EU blinds you to reason and logic. Time to retire?
Reply The trade deal with Australia was about general trade. There are still quota restrictions on food
January 7, 2022
What a totally ridiculous post from you Len.
First you say trade deals post Brexit will never be created, then when they are are you created you sneer at them via the food miles argument.
Yet you support policies which make home grown food less likely.
You lefties…
January 7, 2022
How many in DEFRA have actually worked on a farm or spoken to farmers? I suspect close to zero. Farmers as a rule want to grow and produce food, not ‘rewild’ their land.
Let’s have a strategy that encourages sustainable farming, intensive salad and flower production in controlled internal environments and ecological improvements on marginal quality land.
January 7, 2022
The old Min. of Ag. and Fish was staffed by many failed vetinary students who knew little about farming proper as you say. I suspect they had personal prejudices against farming. I guess much the same applies now – with the climate fears as an added bonus.
January 7, 2022
DEFRA = The DEPARTMENT for the ELIMINATION of FARMING and RURAL affairs…..
January 7, 2022
Boris had an 80 seat majority and an army of people he could delegate tasks to. All totally wasted. He seems intent on making other countries rich at our expense. Boris cares not one jot for the UK or the indigenous. Just like Labour, he cares more for the illegal invaders and the natives of other countries. We do not have a conservative or a Brexit government. Why have ‘conservative’ MP’s allowed this to happen? They are complicit.
January 7, 2022
+100 Shirley
January 7, 2022
+1
January 7, 2022
Indeed but burning biomass instead of gas or coal makes little sense (even in net CO2 terms) and as sensible and honest scientists know. There is no need at all to reduce UK CO2 emissions for climate reasons. There is clearly no imminent climate emergency and even if there were the UKâs contribution would make only a totally trivial difference. A bit more CO2 and a little warmer on balance is a net positive anyway.
Some UK land might be suitable for wood/timber production but most UK land is far better used in other more profitable ways.
January 7, 2022
Corrected version – Indeed, but burning biomass instead of gas or coal makes little sense (even just in net CO2 terms let alone climate). Sensible, independent and honest scientists all know this. There is no need at all to reduce UK CO2 emissions for climate reasons as there is no imminent climate emergency and if there were the UKâs contribution would make a totally trivial difference. A bit more CO2 and a little warmer on balance is actually a net positive anyway.
Some UK land might be suitable for wood/timber production but most UK land is far better used in other more profitable ways. Forests once fully grown tend to give off as much CO2 as they taking in (from decaying wood and vegetation so if you (misguidedly) want to reduce CO2 you clearly should chop down all old mature forests use the wood for construction or other long lasting uses or bury it. Then replace with young trees. But as this would be unpopular and damage the environment the green crap con-merchants never suggest this or point it out. Burning wood at Drax is rather worse than burning coal in CO2 terms but they do this every day – imported from the US on diesel ship and trucks.
January 7, 2022
The thinking is a mystery. I live on an A road and the planting location of trees is questionable. One foot in from the curb at a set of traffic lights, that already suffers with an overhanging hedge over- growth!
I sometimes wonder if they do think, or whether there is a daily lightbulb moment as with a female labour MPâs maths!
January 7, 2022
Indeed they do not care really what they do so long as they get a good salary, nice office, can work from home as they with and a gold plated pension and do not have to do much work themselves personally.
Just as happy blocking the road and putting in speed humps as they are removing them for bus lanes or bike lanes who care not my money.
Tree are not a good thing to hit if you skid off a the road (perhaps on some wet leaves) – not much give in large tree trunks on impact.
January 7, 2022
At least you have some trees. All the roadside trees in my village are to be cut down to widen the road so the newbuild occupants in the next town can get home quicker. All the grass verges are to go too. Not at all green.
January 7, 2022
What did you expect when the only game in town is net zero.
Carrie wants to turn the country into a large theme park with no industry, no agriculture and Joe public priced off the road.
We’re fast becoming the laughing stock of the world.
January 7, 2022
Net Zero is indeed damaging & dangerous for the country but there appears to be an embargo on MPs speaking outâŠ.like climate change theyâre scared of the media and there isnât a political opposition to net zero in the house
I fear for democracy when the government starts to label people as âloonsâ for having an alternative views, whether on climate change, vaccination or net zero
January 7, 2022
Just like a modern day,XXXL version of Marie-Antoinette’s Le Petit Hameau/Hameau de la Reine.
Let them eat acorns!
And six years later ……..the revolution.
January 7, 2022
The tickets to Marie-Antoinetteâs Estate are 20 Euro now for a “passport”. Don’t go in the afternoon it gets crowded. French Covid rules apply.
January 7, 2022
That might change when her man is booted out in a few months.
January 8, 2022
Out of the Petit Trianon near Versailles? Arenât you mixing up a few things here?
January 8, 2022
Bit too subtle for you hef?
It was a reference to President Macron, linking his forthcoming election and his partner to Marie Antoinette
January 7, 2022
Net zero is about taking the masses off the roads. They know Joe Average won’t be able to afford electric vehicles or the ability to charge them. Read the latest planning applications re heat exchangers, electric points, public transport, walking and cycling every where. That works outside of London……….NOT!
January 7, 2022
+1
January 7, 2022
Jeremy Warner today.
The Tories canât escape this cost of living disaster
The Government is boxed in by its deluded choices on personal taxation and green energy policies
Also The Treasuryâs plan to freeze income tax thresholds, at a time of rapid wage and price inflation, will push more than 1.2âmillion workersâ earnings above the 40p threshold, according to analysis by the House of Commons Library.
These vast tax increases need to be reversed. Just government stop pissing money down the drain on HS2, net zero, bloated government, green crap subsidies, the dire NHS, duff worthless degrees, incompetence defence spending, the Covid over reaction, test and trace and so much else.
January 7, 2022
This will destroy jobs, deter investment and diminish the tax base anyway and raise less tax in the medium term anyway.
January 7, 2022
CAP had to be dismantled as the EU was no longer recycling our money to us. It was a forced change.
No other changes have been forced, therefore there have been no changes.
January 7, 2022
The Environment Dept and Environment Quangos appear to be staffed at senior levels entirely with left-wing Eco fanatics.
We need a massive clear-out of these people ….. but there’s not a hope of that happening now Cummings has gone and Johnson has morphed into Gordon Brown.
January 7, 2022
But think of the enormous hike in the Unemployed numbers.
January 7, 2022
I suppose decades of simply doing what you have been told to do by the EU has rendered ministers and civil servants literally incapable of thinking for themselves so inertia results. I guess this will continue until we have a more “extreme” government of the right or left who will take advantage of the opportunities – the current Blair/Brown government is ill-equipped to as it is anyway happy to align to EU policy.
January 7, 2022
You have a government staffed by Leavers – Boris, Gove, Mogg, Sunak, Patel, Frost (until the heat got too much for him). If this ain’t going well – and it ain’t – you have only Leavers to blame
January 7, 2022
I blame Remainers for undermining the negotiations all the way through. They still are. They hate this country and worship the autocracy.
January 8, 2022
Useless farmers used to blame that lady at the end of the lane with a black cat for their crop failures too.
January 7, 2022
Rewilding is talked about all over at the moment. Perhaps this means less labour to manage the land, which is just as well seeing as farm workers won’t be able to compete with second homes and holiday let sales for a roof over their head.
Not so much turning agricultural land over to rewilding in our area though, more like turning it over for housing. Well we need to find somewhere for the immigrants somewhere, legal or illegal.
Let’s face it, the Treasury would far rather the UK import cheap food, with the population in high salary high tax jobs.
January 7, 2022
When George Useless suggested that mothers with spare time on their hands after the school run, suggested they work in abattoirs to solve the staff shortage, you know you have an âidiotâ in charge so why should anyone be surprised about the rubbish emanating from his department.
Mark Hix absolutely spot on in the DT, Jeremy Clarkson knows more about farming than the Minister.
And in other news a man with a brain the size of a planet âconvenientlyâ forgets to tell man investigating his behaviour that he changed phones. It goes without saying he forgot/could not recall etc.
Obviously the Establishment protected him but for me another example, as if one is needed, of his xxx and total lack of fitness for the job. If he can constantly get away with âbreaking laws/rulesâ etc how can he or his MPs criticise the Colston statue decision?
January 7, 2022
Using Whatsapp means you can switch from one handset to another without losing messages. Transfer the existing SIM – hey presto – unless the handset is locked.
I take it Johnson had to change numbers? (but I very much doubt it).
January 7, 2022
He came across as honest when interviewed about this subject………….NOT.
January 7, 2022
and then forgot about all the dialogue over the system! Early dementia or long Covid playing havoc with our PMs memory?
January 7, 2022
I read a Regulator who has been accused of being a barrier to post Brexit freedoms is to resign. No doubt he will get a massive honour for holding this country back.
Who the government appoints as his replacement will tell us whether they are truly committed to taking advantage of our, as yet , un achieved freedoms or will it be another sop to the Civil Service and the EU?
January 8, 2022
What “freedoms” might those be, Nig?
January 7, 2022
The voters of this country gave our Government a great opportunity to right the wrongs imposed upon us by the EU. Rather than seizing upon these opportunities, the benefits of Brexit are being squandered. The majority of British people donât want to see re-wilding and our farmland sold off to house building companies to service ever-increasing immigration, what we want is more quality home-produced food.
Everything this Government does is to keep us as closely aligned to the EU as it possibly can. This isnât the Brexit people voted for.
January 7, 2022
The absolute best thing about Brexit is how much you all hate it.
It is immensely satisfying watching you all whinge about your miserable project.
So let me help you out. This is PRECISELY what you voted for. And this is precisely why we didnât vote for it and why when spent 5 years telling you what a dumb idea it was.
January 7, 2022
The surest way to send a mardy toddler into an even bigger tantrum is to give them literally what they demanded in their first one.
It seems to be what we have here, doesn’t it, Andy?
January 7, 2022
you two should get a room..
January 7, 2022
Still great to be out of the empire.
Free of their law making
January 8, 2022
They were very good laws.
Which one oppressed you personally?
January 8, 2022
I didn’t say I was oppressed NHL
I just prefer, like the 160 other nations seem to do, to have my own national elected representatives make law in my own supreme Parliament.
January 8, 2022
So you can’t name any EU law which has ever caused you personally any problem, exactly like the rest of the Leave thicket.
Thanks for the admission.
January 9, 2022
I’ve said what I wanted to say.
It is about the concept of being an independent nation.
People have fought and died for that ambition.
You seem incapable of grasping that noble ideal.
January 9, 2022
And I made no admission so your claim.is stupid and irrelevant NHL
January 7, 2022
The game has moved on. The Establishment are less bothered about us not being in the EU now that both Britain and the EU are to subsumed into the new global government. A bit like poking your head out of the escape tunnel and finding you are still inside the wire.
January 7, 2022
I would pick up on just one subject in todays diary and it is that of pork manufacture. I am all for returning it to the UK if farmers wish to produce it, but I am concerned with what happens to it after the abbattoir. Far too much bacon and I suspect pork is pumped full of salt water. I assume this is at the behest of supermarkets who sell salt water at bacon prices. Yes they sell air dried bacon at inflated prices as if it is something special too. It isn’t, AD bacon is the norm just as 28day hung beef should be the norm.
The top country for pork production in terms of quality is Spain. They only market streaky bacon because all the other bits of the pig are used to satisfy the Spanish market. Nevertheless that bacon is superb in quality, no white scum in the pan when you cook it.
Conclusion, by all means encourage the UK farmer to produce high quality pork, which I’m sure they prefer to do, but put an end to the supermarkets demand for cheap but profitable by ending the processing mal practice that adulterates the end product to enhance the retalers bottom line.
January 7, 2022
Agricola. I buy British outdoor bred bacon from.my local supermarket. Yes, a bit more expensive but it cooks really well with no horrible white stuff and water and tastes so much better. Plus I feel better knowing the animal had a better life.
January 7, 2022
yuck – we’ll all seen the preservatives and make-weight water come out on cooking.
Danish bacon plus chemicals and water – lovely. And thats without concerns abou the pigs welfare.
January 7, 2022
There’s an article in today’s Independent by the Director of Rewilding Britain saying that current government policy doesn’t go anywhere near far enough and more funding is needed. It shows the problem when government tries to placate such groups as this and also the climate scaremongers, they never accept what’s been offered but want more and more. It’s for these reasons that for several years I’ve been encouraging my children in their 20s to consider developing careers in the far east where prosperity is encouraged and not undermined. This has been on the basis that they can come back to the UK later in life if they feel they can afford to. It gives me no pleasure to say that one of them is now actively plannng this and is likely to leave in the next 12 months. Who’d want to run a business requiring an ever more expensive physical base in this country due to energy costs? What sane large scale multi national manufacturer would locate here for the same reasons?
January 7, 2022
MPC. Much wants more, paid for by the poor impoverished tax payer!
January 7, 2022
Sir John
Sad news indeed but it has been clear for some time that departments and Ministers are bereft of ideas and have been asleep at the wheel. Ministers need to take charge of their departments, question everything the civil servants present to them and have a counter argument or supportive report from outside professional, and then follow through.
Perhaps Boris needs to read your posts
January 7, 2022
Hello Sir John,
All your recent posts have been common sense & a majority of the responses are in agreement. On Net Zero, Energy, Tax & Food production, tree planting etc, you seem to know the mood of the UK. So why is nothing happening? Is it Ministers who are asleep at the wheel, or is it the Civil Service undermining them? Where are the freeports?
Where is the bonfire of EU regulations? Where are the tax cuts we need to grow our way out of debt? If you, as an MP cannot influence the government what chance do we have? My MP is a nodding donkey who votes for whatever the government put forward & takes no notice of any input, at least not from me. I voted for a conservative government in Dec 2019, where is it?
January 7, 2022
Indeed all you say is true John, and I agree that you would think that a farmers main job should be producing food, but then perhaps the title of that Department should be changed.
Where is the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries ?
The Department of the Environment sounds like a Department that would look after pollution, flooding, clean air, even perhaps waste management, but given we still seem to have a problem with silting up rivers, building on flood plains, running inefficient water treatment/sewerage works, with millions of tons of overspill polluting the rivers, they seem to fail on that task as well.
Re-wilding the Countryside at the expense of taxpayers and growing food just seems daft.
Yes many of us like to look at flowers and attractive shrubs and trees, but we can do that in our own, or in dedicated gardens (Kew, Wisley, National Trust and the like), or perhaps visit Local, Country/National Parks or Reserves, Hyde Park, Richmond Park, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Yorkshire Dales or even wetlands etc etc.
I wonder, do the snowflakes in charge actually understand the real farming and fishing processes ?
January 7, 2022
‘Where is the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries ?’
Good question – but since both are being run down to the point of being negligible it might be disbanded soon.
January 7, 2022
Japan and the US – for instance – have only recently lifted their BSE-related bans on UK beef, many years after the European Union did.
January 7, 2022
You do realise the US had BSE at a similar time to us? I used to travel around and was amazed to be told by several people, behind a hand across the mouth ‘ of course we have cases too, but it wouldn’t be good news, it is not going to reach media’.
All three places maintaining protectionism. A great excuse to stop imports.
January 7, 2022
Not like the proportion as in the UK at that time, but yes, in general perhaps so in the case of the US.
January 7, 2022
so why would the EU, Japan and USA hold back years after BSE was over and done with, the UK meat exporting ability well and truly clobbered?
Protectionism of course …. find a reason to stop a level playing field.
January 8, 2022
The European Union did not.
January 7, 2022
It seems someone is determined to make us poor and hungry.
Re-wilding farm land while continuing to import hundreds of thousands of people every year.
January 7, 2022
NLA
Indeed, the more people the more farm produce you need, fresh water, power, fuel of all sorts, water treatment works, reservoirs, schools, hospitals, roads and transport of all types, and of course housing.
The real problem is the growing population, especially over the last few decades.
Few people now grow their own produce in their gardens, as fewer have any gardens at all, multi story Blocks of flats, or dense modern estates where gardens are so small, and often in the shade.
Our land mass is static, our population is growing at a vast rate, it will all end in tears.
January 7, 2022
We must stop illegals getting here. We call our leaders gutless because they don’t stop mass invasions. Fact is they like it. Just look at the how our leaders are presented.
However, we should add to our land mass. How about draining large proportions of the Thames estuary, and The Wash? Why just there? We could extend our land into the North Sea in many areas.
No I’m not crazy. I just think of many things our leaders won’t contemplate, because they think themselves infinitely superior to the rest of us.
January 8, 2022
No, the Dutch have done exactly this for generations re reclamation.
January 7, 2022
In the third paragraph, you say “it needs to” it is your government – you have a big majority – why aren’t your government doing so? Why can’t you get backbenchers together and start a campaign about it with a plan of action? Does everything come from just the ministers heading each department, don’t they take instruction from the people we elect if sufficient of you put a decent plan in writing with support?
January 7, 2022
Surely we should not be following the same policies as countries which have proportionally much greater land areas and can better afford to take large tracts out of food production?
January 7, 2022
Denis
Having visited France very many times over the last few decades, the huge change in their agriculture/farming is the predominance of the range of seemingly brand new farm equipment on show and being used.
As well as having about 5 times the land mass and a similar population to the UK, they appear to have done very well out of CAP, a system they helped to initially fashion for their own benefit and way of life because their farmers (and fishermen) are very politically pro active.
January 7, 2022
for a nation that is preoccupied with eating and drinking.
January 7, 2022
They have made great use of co-operatives for the ownership of plant etc. to their huge benefit.
That happens less here because the landowners (who received the subsidies) are often not the actual farmers.
January 7, 2022
CAP was designed for small French farmers
January 8, 2022
The Mansholt Plan at the end of the â60s was to reduce the number of small farms. The 1992 MacSharry reform mainly aimed at wheat and beef also advantaged bigger farms.
Do you ever check anything before writing P2?
January 8, 2022
Farms in the UK have gradually merged into more efficient larger area farms.
CAP encouraged small farms in France (especially) to continue via subsidies.
Now accounting for a major slice of the total EU budget.
CAP has been promised for radical reform for decades but little has changed.
Go off and do some more Internet searching hef.
January 7, 2022
It is because we have the wrong person in charge.
George Eustice is, I am sure, a heck of a nice chap, but if one reads Wikipedia’s entry it would appear that he has never remained in a job long enough to make a true and lasting difference. The entry also illustrates that he is easily influenced by those around him at any particular time and he has had several minor parliamentary skirmishes and admonishments in the last 10 years or so.
On paper he looks to be ideal but we need a Minister who spells out the direction of travel of the Environment dept’ and keeps it on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately the departmental civil servants have ‘sold him’ their agenda and being a nice chap he has fallen in line. Subsidising the reduction of the country’s food producing acreage is ridiculous to say the least, but he has been weak and accepted it.
Ministers should be born leaders not chameleons.
January 7, 2022
Eustice is an ex-ukipper. You wonder why he is incompetent?
January 7, 2022
The words “fish” and “barrel” spring to mind…
January 7, 2022
Your mind perhaps.
January 7, 2022
Why would that automatically make him incompetent young Andy?
Please explain.
January 7, 2022
That at least is rather encouraging!
January 7, 2022
Is the Department doing anything to compensate for the fishing ports, destroyed and converted to marinas during our membership of the EU, and then having to display signs that boasted of the benevolence of the EU for spending our money to do so? I won’t hold my breath!
Money that has been squandered on lock down, test and trace and vaccines, none of which work, should have been spent on helping farmers to establish the kind of green house industry with which Netherlands has used to take over our flower and salad market so we CAN buy local.
January 7, 2022
“The not so good news is the delay in putting in a replacement, and the absence of strong policies to promote more UK food production.”
Not exactly the fault of Defra though, if their remit has remained unchanged since before before Brexit! Once again the current PM (due to pillow talk?) has missed the opportunity to put food production centre to the countries needs via a revived MAFF. I have never known of, or heard of, a Farmer who has not taken their environmental responsibilities seriously, of course they sometimes have to weigh up the pros and cons of nature vs. food, but for some eco-worriers to suggest [1] they do not care is akin to suggesting carpenters do not care for their chisels!
The biggest concern, when it comes to Environmental issues, is from industry and business, time to move the Environment in with BEIS (to create BEEIS) perhaps.
[1] as they did during the 2000 Foot & Mouth outbreak and during the 1990s BSE crisis
January 7, 2022
One needs to ask WHY?
What is it going to take to get the Environment Department working effectively and for our needs?
I fear we are seeing a symptom of the net-zero Virus, that produces a dogmatic unthinking attitude to life, leaving those affected dull and confused.
With so many strands to this net-zero thing, it seems that any innovation has to tread a gauntlet of policy considerations that sap the strength of even the best.
The only solution, apart from extracting every last dreg of EU irrationality from our system, is to likewise do the same with the totally insane net-zero dogma.
January 7, 2022
Are we certain that we havenât just swapped the Common Agricultural Policy for The European Rewilding Network?
January 7, 2022
I’ve been watching these programmes:
https://www.pbsamerica.co.uk/series/europes-waterways/
and a lot of it is about rewilding.
January 7, 2022
+1
Thanks for the link đž
January 7, 2022
There does not seem much green about the re-wilding scheme that expensively and harmfully eliminates cereal production to make us more reliant upon imported produce.
And what is to happen to these re-wilded areas when the Home Secretary is letting in c.100,000 settlers ex dingy a year, requiring buildings and other infrastructure equivalent to a city the size of Cambridge? Not exactly what would be referred to as “joined-up government” is it!
(I accept the official figure for 2021 was c.28,000 but we must brace ourselves for the traditional declaration in due course of that being a material underestimate and with all Mrs. Patel’s prowess I am confident the 100,o00 figure can be met in 2022.)
January 7, 2022
Formula57 :
âNot exactly what would be referred to as âjoined-up governmentâ is it!â
Perhaps the rewilding idea is to provide land for illegals to build up their own separate favela style communities?
January 7, 2022
That’s interesting. I have been forecasting a figure of 50,000 for 2021 during the whole of the year. There is no way that 28,000 will be true. I do not believe the government in anything, especially with ‘Boris’ at the head.
The fact that Sir John, in spite of all the deceit, and government and party insane policies, remains loyal shows we the people should believe nothing said to us by politicians. We must just arrange things for ourselves however it suits us best because no leaders can be believed in. They all get rewarded no matter what they do, even illegal.
January 7, 2022
People voted to stop immigration.
Unless the Conservative Party implement that policy they will be toast.
January 7, 2022
People who voted Leave voted to replace our fellow Europeans working here with people from the rest of the world willing to do the jobs that British people don’t want.
Tip: not many Australians, Canadians, Americans or New Zealanders want them either.
January 7, 2022
More twaddle from you NHL
Making up ever more ridiculous reasons people voted to leave the EU.
January 8, 2022
That may not have been in their minds but was the inevitable material effect of their vote.
Wasn’t it?
January 8, 2022
When did leave say what you claim?
Ridiculous made up nonsense but it allows you to wave your little race card again.
January 8, 2022
That’s a separate matter.
January 9, 2022
Your post intertwined both concepts.
Don’t deny it NHL.
January 7, 2022
I see that the Pound will now buy 1.20 euro-thingies. Perhaps this site’s euro-trolls might like to bring up a 5-year graph of the exchange rate – and so might Cameron.
Reply Yes pound up 8% in the first year and a week after leaving the EU. All the remain forecasts talked of a major fall. Lets be having the apologies from our Remain contributors to this site.
January 7, 2022
Sterling started to fall against the euro the moment that it looked remotely possible that the UK might vote to Leave the European Union, hardly surprising.
In Nov 2015 it was at 1.42.
By the end of Oct 2016 it had fallen to 1.11.
It has risen since what John calls leaving, because the markets are simply relieved that the ERG did not in the end get their catastrophic No Deal.
Making A Virtue Out Of Necessity, I think that it’s called.
January 7, 2022
1.20 today NHL.
Going up it seems.
January 7, 2022
Yes, as it becomes clear that the ERG are becoming a spent force.
January 7, 2022
Twaddle NHL
The ERG don’t have an effect on world currency market movements.
January 7, 2022
As you correctly describe the EU, via the CAP, has inflicted considerable damage on UK agriculture in order to increase EU food exports to the UK and make us more dependent upon the EU.
Food is a large part of our ÂŁ100bn/YEAR trading deficit with the EU and in fact we were, as net contributors to the EU budget, paying for EU farmers to sell us more expensive food.
But now the government/BEISâ Net Zero Strategy plan is to take this damage even further by implementing net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Hence the plan to reduce agricultural output and replace with ârewildingâ which will be effectively paying farmers to do nothing and import (that is, export GHG emissions) more of our food.
Because of the extreme difficulties of producing food without emitting GHGs the Net Zero Strategy plan is to offset all the GHG emissions through carbon capture, thus effectively making our home produced food the most expensive in the world by far.
The governmentâs Behavioural Unit will also be hard at work frightening us to save the planet by becoming vegans.
January 8, 2022
They will not frighten us, just tax us as they do with salt and sugar.
January 7, 2022
DEFRA, headed by Useless Eustice, has been an absolute disaster and has betrayed Brexit at every turn. On farming, your comments are absolutely spot on. We should be encouraging the growing of more food, the expansion of greenhouses and vertical farming, of robotic crop pickers, of gene editing (not just of plants but also of livestock), and of import subsitution. Instead we are doing none of these things, and instead covering our arable land with cretinous solar panels that only work a few hours a day.
On fishing, we should be taking back control (as we voted for) of our waters, so that British fish is caught by British fishermen, landed at British ports and processed in British factories, not stolen by foreign fishermen. On animal welfare (also a DEFRA responsibility) we should be banning the vicious, medieval slaughter of unstunned animals. How we treat our animals is a mark of our civilisation (or lack of such). DEFRA should be doing so much better on coastal defences and on protecting flood plains. And on food labelling, we should now ensure that consumers can easily see WHERE food in the supermarkets was grown, so that we can buy British – which all polls show the majority would like to do.
But no, Useless Eustice is doing NONE of these things. But don’t worry, he’s got his priorities right: he is still a slave to the EU and is going to copy their latest ban on coloured tattoo inks, thus depriving Britain of an economic opportunity to lure the millions of people who want these tattoos to our country. What an absolute moron.
January 7, 2022
Perhaps we have completely the wrong kind of person and profile in the civil service. Perhaps they have no initiative having got so used to simply implementing ideas and directives from the EU.
We certainly seem to have completely the wrong kind of leadership, if you could even call it that.
January 7, 2022
A perfect route for those unable to make anything, sell anything, design anything, manage anything, but are able to waffle and avoid decision making until the cows come home, all the while comfortable in the certain knowledge that a pension would be provided decades in the future.
January 8, 2022
perhaps the level and actuality of their livelihoods and pensions should be tied to the success of their customers.
January 8, 2022
This is very true and something I and others have touched upon. Alas it is going to take some time for this to change.
January 7, 2022
By way of contrast with turboterrior I would advocate more house building in timber. It will not suit every location and must not be ordered for everyone to follow but where used I would imagine there will be no need to sink the massive concrete foundation now required. They can be built much quicker not just on site but off site work can be done too.
January 7, 2022
Prang. It burns well too.
January 7, 2022
Following the lead given by X-Tory yesterday:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/01/06/getting-brexit-done-2/#comment-1289681
I’ve responded to a letter in the Times today from Andrew Hunter, who says that he was the Tory MP for Newbury until he switched to the DUP. I don’t expect my letter will be published but here it is, without the supporting references:
“Surely Andrew Hunter cannot be right about the disdainful attitude of the current UK government towards Northern Ireland.
After all it was elected on a manifesto which stated “Boris Johnsonâs new deal takes the whole country out of the EU as one United Kingdom”, and when it went on to say “We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.” there was no caveat that this would not apply to Northern Ireland.
However to get the free trade deal with the EU that he craved Boris Johnson was prepared to accept the nonsensical official position of the Irish government that there could be no checks and controls on goods anywhere on the island of Ireland, not just at the international land border, so that it then became necessary to ensure that not only all the goods brought in from outside, but also all the goods produced in the province, conformed to EU rules under the supervision of the EU court.”
January 7, 2022
Tree planting is not fine when its primary purpose is capturing CO2 or growing fuel for power stations, especially when its on land that could be used for food production. Doing things for insane reasons is unlikely to produce serendipitous benefits which is why the Tory party is such a disaster for this country. They deserve to never be elected to parliament again.
January 7, 2022
To what extent is our UK Government on board / participating in the EU’s ”Fork to Farm Strategy” Around 20+ pages on the EU Commission’s website. I assume we are to be part of this ‘global transition’ Certainly looks like it.
January 7, 2022
Sorry – I meant the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy…..
January 8, 2022
Yes and no: Henry Dimbleby, the founder of the restaurant chain Leon and of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, has been appointed by Michael Gove in 06/2019 to look at a âFarm to Forkâ strategy for the UK, but independently of the EUâs F2F. The UK F2FS has the support of the NFU, Food & Drink Fed., and British Nutrition Foundation (gov.uk, 27/06/2019, DEFRA).
January 7, 2022
The main problem is that we still have the same muppets running the Environment Department that we had before Brexit. The majority of whom have been indoctrinated into gold plating directives from Brussels. It’s hardly surprising that they have little vision of what could be and even less ability to put it into practice.
January 8, 2022
+1
It will take a very determined Secretary of State to turn that ship around.
January 7, 2022
“The successful conclusion of this yearâs consultations on shared fish stocks sets a good precedent for future negotiations with the UK. Thanks to goodwill and a constructive approach on both sides, we were able to reach an agreement that provides certainty for EU fishermen and women going forward.”
JoĆŸe PodgorĆĄek, Slovenian Minister for Agriculture
This recent EU statement says it all regarding the sell-out of our fishing industry. Boris is WEAK, WEAK, WEAK and should be ashamed of what he is doing to our country. The Conservatives will be finished at the next election if he isn’t removed soon.