If polls are right the blue hedge could well be clipped in election

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With the Clarkson’s Farm series on Amazon the motoring journalist turned unlikely farmer has become an unexpected but very successful champion for agriculture.

He has turned a frustration with bureaucracy that all farmers share into an art form for television.

At a time when claims from the silly to the ridiculous are the order of the day from politicians, he recently commented on the bizarre suggestion from the government that if re-elected it would reintroduce national service.

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In a pithy comment Clarkson said it would be better to forget military service and instead send legions of young people to work on farms. This was on grounds that labour is impossible to get, with the result that vegetable and fruit crops often cannot be harvested because the government's post-Brexit policies deny farmers access to skilled labour from the EU.With four weeks to go to the election the signs at a national level are that this will be one of the most unpleasant and nasty campaigns in political history. Sunak and Starmer can rightly be expected to differ in their politics, but that they dislike each other is clear for all to see.

Sunak has chosen to take his party to the right, despite elections being won on the centre ground. Picture: Jonathan Porter /Press EyeSunak has chosen to take his party to the right, despite elections being won on the centre ground. Picture: Jonathan Porter /Press Eye
Sunak has chosen to take his party to the right, despite elections being won on the centre ground. Picture: Jonathan Porter /Press Eye

Sunak has chosen to take his party to the right, despite elections being won on the centre ground. Starmer is determined to look like a prime minister in waiting, while hoping the polls now massively in his favour have not peaked too soon.

The two major parties have been giving their views on agriculture, and farmers would be unwise to hold their breath in expectation of radical thinking or indeed anything different, regardless of who wins. One victim of the election could be the traditional Conservative grip on rural seats. Of the 100 most rural seats in England the Conservatives hold 99.

These have been dubbed the blue hedge, as opposed to the red wall Boris Johnson temporarily destroyed.

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But if polls are right that blue hedge will be clipped in the election, with the Conservatives likely to be left with 40 to 45 of those seats, at best. This would mean some very high profile casualties in what were once solid Tory seats.

Change on that level would give Labour a mandate to do more in agriculture, but to date all they are offering is a vague promise to reverse the decline in rural areas.While here it is a month to the general election the fever of results is just about here for politicians across Europe.

Come the early days of next week we will know the results from all 27 member states of the EU the make up of the new European parliament. These will confirm whether, as many predicted, there will be a surge in support for far right anti-immigration and anti-EU parties. That will decide whether legislative road blocks and chaos lie ahead for Europe. In the run up to the elections there was a limited resurgence of farm protests, but they were by smaller activist groups rather than the mainstream lobby. For now agriculture is doing well in changing EU attitudes and in reshaping the CAP and its green agenda, but action by minority extreme groups could see defeat snatched from the jaws of victory for European farmers. Away from election politics the EU is in the no man’s land created by change halting progress. This will be the case from the results of the European parliament elections to the nomination and confirmation of a new European Commission in October. For now the news coming from Brussels is a mix of good and bad for agriculture. On the positive side Brussels says the drivers of inflation in farm input costs and food prices have eased.

A return to a new normality is here and it says this should ease some of the margin pressure farmers have faced.

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The EU has also acted to impose new tariffs on arable products from Russia and Belarus, which sends a signal to Moscow that its actions have consequences, while easing criticism about Ukraine’s easy access to EU grain and other markets.

The bad news in this equation is that the risk now is from geopolitical events over which the EU has no control.

Those are headlined by Ukraine and the Middle East, but there are other potential flashpoints that pose economic risks and threats to the food supply chain.

We live in an over-heated world and saw how quickly the Russian invasion of Ukraine drove the world to an inflationary peak.

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