Speaker 1: So it's quite sensible as we haven't got Callum with
Speaker 1: us this week, so I don't want any knob gags.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, can you imagine it's episode sixty nine today?
Speaker 2: I mean, can you imagine where he would be right now?
Speaker 1: I don't want to imagine where Callum is in a.
Speaker 2: Sixty nine No, No, he'd definitely be at the wrong end,
Speaker 2: wouldn't he.
Speaker 3: So yes, no, so Callum isn't.
Speaker 2: Here Richard because he is off stalking, not in a
Speaker 2: sinister way.
Speaker 3: To add, what is deer?
Speaker 1: So it might be sinisterly stalking deer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, sinisterly stalking deer.
Speaker 2: Do you know I was talking to Goldie today because
Speaker 2: I was telling the other day about how I've sort
Speaker 2: of got him lots and lots of customers all of
Speaker 2: a sudden who want to buy his boxes of.
Speaker 3: These deer boxes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and Jack in the box, Jack in the bar.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to register that.
Speaker 2: Before Rester, that whilst we're on air, before some blighter
Speaker 2: nix it. But do you know he was telling me
Speaker 2: today because I mean it's quite bizarre. You imagine he
Speaker 2: and I together. He likes to talk, I like to talk,
Speaker 2: but we just talk at one another, very rarely listening
Speaker 2: to what one another has to say. Yeah, exactly like
Speaker 2: all men do. But anyway, he was taking then talking
Speaker 2: me through his days stalking the other day and he
Speaker 2: was saying, and it was just talking about then I
Speaker 2: got to this clump of bramble, then turn left because
Speaker 2: the wind had done this.
Speaker 3: That and the other.
Speaker 2: And you know, if the only difference it being from
Speaker 2: like a Graham Downing piece in the shooting times is
Speaker 2: that Graham Downing would have resulted at the end of
Speaker 2: his lengthy diatribe about going with the wind and hiding
Speaker 2: behind this tree, and that with one deer shot, Gouldy
Speaker 2: had six month jack, one red and two row.
Speaker 3: So that's the.
Speaker 2: Difference really is it's it's the quality is the same,
Speaker 2: but the quantity is markedly different. Yes, so's he's been doing?
Speaker 2: Is stuff out there in the field.
Speaker 1: Is there a sort of the difference between stalking for
Speaker 1: pleasure versus stalking as a job as part of wildlife management?
Speaker 3: Utterly that Richard one hundred And I think.
Speaker 2: It's where one of the problems of the deer over
Speaker 2: abundance that we have, I think we talked about last week,
Speaker 2: but I think it's worth reiterating it is that there
Speaker 2: is deer stalking evolved sort of lowland deer stalking anyway,
Speaker 2: evolved as a sort of a hobby, courtesy really of
Speaker 2: Richard Pryor trying to raise the profile and the value
Speaker 2: which we have for the row because they were before
Speaker 2: Richard Pryor sort of wrote his book on Roadie, they
Speaker 2: were considered as basically vermin, and they were treated as such,
Speaker 2: And I would agree wholeheartedly with them. They deserve our
Speaker 2: kind regard and careful care emittedly with a rifle when
Speaker 2: needs be. But he was never writing in a time
Speaker 2: when we were riddled with non native over abundance.
Speaker 1: Hell of a comedian, though, Yeah, try.
Speaker 2: To skin himself once, didn't He? He was on is
Speaker 2: it MDM A or something?
Speaker 1: I think it's or is it crack crack?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's on something which is which the Greens want
Speaker 2: to legalize, and skin himself.
Speaker 1: I'm on the edge of my knowledge here with my
Speaker 1: illicit substances exactly. I grew up on a very strong.
Speaker 2: Exactly on which note, I'm drinking Henry Western's and.
Speaker 3: I'm drinking that in celebration of.
Speaker 2: Nick Over in the Forest of Dean because Adams, Nick Adams,
Speaker 2: because I think am I correct in saying that Herefordshire
Speaker 2: is his manner.
Speaker 3: And also it was on four for three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the co op in Bottersdale, so yes, So
Speaker 2: it wasn't really for Nick. It was because it saved
Speaker 2: me three pounds fifty for a bottle of cider.
Speaker 3: That's what it really did.
Speaker 1: I love how when then sort of rural dramas and
Speaker 1: TV things, and when the ben Elson used to make
Speaker 1: films about the British countryside, the everyone shops are sort
Speaker 1: of little quaint village shops run by somebody and it's
Speaker 1: all local produce and things like that, and people tried
Speaker 1: to make that happen in the countryside. But really, if
Speaker 1: you are coming back from a long day of working
Speaker 1: in the woods of the forest or wherever, you end
Speaker 1: up going into spa co op, yeah, petrol station, whichever
Speaker 1: is open, which involves the minimum number of steps between
Speaker 1: the truck door.
Speaker 2: The and let's be perfectly honest, the reason for that
Speaker 2: is because the little places that were village shops have
Speaker 2: now been converted into houses by people who vote Green
Speaker 2: and then demand that there aren't village shops anymore. And
Speaker 2: you know, it's it seems to me to be something
Speaker 2: that slightly oxymoronic. Is that all these people who say, oh,
Speaker 2: we haven't got a village pub anymore, did you go
Speaker 2: to the village pub?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: No, but but you know it's important that we have them.
Speaker 2: It's it is is most of the stuff I do.
Speaker 2: I was in London the other day to go and
Speaker 2: talk at the Game Farmers Association an your general meeting,
Speaker 2: and I stayed. In fact, I spoke to you from there,
Speaker 2: didn't I from is Lincoln.
Speaker 1: You're speaking to me live from withinside Islington.
Speaker 2: Indeed, yes, you know there were people who actually like
Speaker 2: Keir Starmer there, which is a rare old place. It's
Speaker 2: you know, it's a bit like sort of and seeing
Speaker 2: it endangered species.
Speaker 1: Did you ever find out whether your hotel had themed
Speaker 1: rooms or whether they all look like that?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I do, you know.
Speaker 2: I just didn't have the confidence to go and burst
Speaker 2: into someone else's room and say, my mate, Richard, what
Speaker 2: thinks thinks that you've got a themed room? No, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to hurt you. Put your phone down
Speaker 2: that it's okay. No, I didn't do that. But let's
Speaker 2: say that they might have done. But anyway, say a
Speaker 2: lovely place called the Hambury in Islington, not that far
Speaker 2: from the Angel Islington, which players of Monopoly will know. Well, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: always a good thing by the Angel is linkedon don't
Speaker 2: buy the old Kent Road always rubbish.
Speaker 1: Cheap crap, rent.
Speaker 2: Crap rent rubbish, rent may fair a bit too expensive,
Speaker 2: but anyway, yeah, So I was there for the Gang
Speaker 2: Farmers Association, and when I was speaking there, I found
Speaker 2: one of the you know, I completely lost my train
Speaker 2: of thought.
Speaker 3: Now on Monopoly. What were we talking about?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 3: Well, why did I say I had to go to London.
Speaker 1: You had been asked to not speak at the Game
Speaker 1: Farmer's thing, but you did it anyway.
Speaker 2: I forced my way to the front, so get out
Speaker 2: of the way.
Speaker 1: Why we should not hold this meeting? And then a
Speaker 1: hedge layer rams himself into the back of the auditorium.
Speaker 2: Do you know it is funny sometimes when you go
Speaker 2: and do this and you have to try and remind
Speaker 2: yourself why you're there, you know, rather than just going
Speaker 2: the usual old thing. When I'm speaking at something about hedges,
Speaker 2: you have to try and sort of make it relevant
Speaker 2: to the game farmers or you know, whichever farming organization
Speaker 2: or whatever you've done. And it would be quite funny
Speaker 2: if Claire had switched my speech and I was doing
Speaker 2: actually the one that i'd done to the Guild of
Speaker 2: Agricultural Journalists, and I started berating all these game farmers
Speaker 2: that they were really rubbish, not writing for any other
Speaker 2: publication other than the Farmer's Weekly.
Speaker 3: But I didn't do that, but it was a lovely thing.
Speaker 2: And one of the things I found about that bit
Speaker 2: of London is that if you were actually after and
Speaker 2: that's what I remembered I was talking about now, is
Speaker 2: that that bit of London, it still had a slight
Speaker 2: villagey feel and they had lots of little shops along
Speaker 2: their sort of esplanade of a high street that had
Speaker 2: everything from the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and
Speaker 2: they've clearly were working. So we've almost got the villages
Speaker 2: of London still exist. But the villages of well, certainly
Speaker 2: rural Suffolk, they're dying on their asses. There's nothing here
Speaker 2: in our village at all other than a pub which
Speaker 2: opens three days a week.
Speaker 1: There's only three quarters high as well, and Bova, you've
Speaker 1: got the lowest ceilings in your pub of anywhere in England.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, well actually just down the road
Speaker 2: the four Horseshoes at Thorn and Magna, that is ridiculously low.
Speaker 2: I mean I have to walk around like Qusi modo
Speaker 2: to get around there. Is it really is quite painful
Speaker 2: if you hit your head there.
Speaker 1: So it's a weird thing when you go to London
Speaker 1: when you sort of think I'm going to get on
Speaker 1: the tube here and go or a taxi or whatever
Speaker 1: and go across to this bit and then go to
Speaker 1: this bit and this bit and then inevitably back to
Speaker 1: the station or your hotel or whatever. And you think
Speaker 1: if I was back home and I've gone across half
Speaker 1: the county in that distance that you've traveled, but you've
Speaker 1: gone past so many facilities and you know, shops and
Speaker 1: little communities, as you say, And this is I think
Speaker 1: it's the argument behind that fifteen minute city, which will
Speaker 1: park the conspiracy theory to one side. Not oh yes,
Speaker 1: that'll you'll be in your fifteen minute city and not
Speaker 1: allowed to leave, is the one of the things, which yeah,
Speaker 1: but that is sort of the idea that every sub
Speaker 1: community is self contained in terms of daily needs in
Speaker 1: a way that rural areas used to be but really
Speaker 1: can't be now because the economics have shifted so much
Speaker 1: that you can't you can't reclaim what you've lost because
Speaker 1: all the buildings it used to be a little shop
Speaker 1: or whatever an our four HOLDI lets, yeah.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 2: I mean I did notice when I was staying down
Speaker 2: in the Cotswolds on my book tour, because you.
Speaker 1: Do get about, don't I know.
Speaker 2: I know because that is basically London that has moved
Speaker 2: to the move to.
Speaker 1: The Cotswolds, the Chelsea Garden.
Speaker 2: The Chelsea Garden, that there they do still have lots
Speaker 2: and lots of various shops selling stuff because it's almost
Speaker 2: that there they've gone, well, yeah, we've got loads of
Speaker 2: money and we're going to live here and we want
Speaker 2: all this luxury of being able to bimble down to
Speaker 2: the artists and baker the artists and butcher that, and
Speaker 2: then they'll pay for it.
Speaker 3: But I think here in the.
Speaker 2: Rest most normal rural Britain, we haven't got the money
Speaker 2: to go and fork out on artisan and loaves. And secondly,
Speaker 2: I say we don't really have the time because even
Speaker 2: if I mean I was working in Norfolk at the
Speaker 2: moment on their hedge out there, which is only like
Speaker 2: forty five minutes away. But you get back anything, the
Speaker 2: shop's not going to stay open for me because I'm
Speaker 2: back home now at are past five. They want to
Speaker 2: have normal shop hours, whereas it seemed to be in
Speaker 2: the Cotswolds. There's lots of people with sufficient time on
Speaker 2: their hands to do their shop with a basket, lots
Speaker 2: of wicker baskets.
Speaker 3: I noticed.
Speaker 1: That should be a T shirt, shouldn't it, Sire Ancestor
Speaker 1: is not the real world. It's not exactly is this
Speaker 1: a parallel universe because it had family that's used to
Speaker 1: get shipped after the Cotswolves for a few summers, and
Speaker 1: it really is. Even then in the eighties and nineties
Speaker 1: it was detached from civilization in a weird way. I
Speaker 1: mean that everyone who made decisions about our day lives
Speaker 1: either had a house there, or holiday there, or went there.
Speaker 1: But in terms of the countryside, it is not like say,
Speaker 1: rural Derbyshire or Leicestershire or somewhere like that. And it's
Speaker 1: certainly not like you know, we're in a relatively poor
Speaker 1: county here. Even for whales. My whales' is standards, which
Speaker 1: is not mucking well, it's just you know, in the
Speaker 1: rankings we are and we don't have local shops in
Speaker 1: that sort of way. There's a little strip on the
Speaker 1: coast which is being gentrified slowly over the years, and
Speaker 1: tourists are sort of pushing that a little bit, but
Speaker 1: also people just moving there because they realized they can
Speaker 1: buy a five story Georgian seafront house for the price
Speaker 1: of what they used to pay for parking in London,
Speaker 1: so they're buying that. And then little shops and businesses
Speaker 1: are popping up to to sort of service that climantel,
Speaker 1: and you're getting these artists and bakers and brewers and
Speaker 1: all these little things starting to pop up. It's great
Speaker 1: for people like my mate Hugh because now he can
Speaker 1: sell beef and milk and all these other things. He's
Speaker 1: doing broiler poultry next direct to customer for a premium,
Speaker 1: and he's because these things are starting to pop up.
Speaker 1: But once you get away from that strip, we just
Speaker 1: don't have that. We don't have those nice little local places,
Speaker 1: or as I said earlier, the only places that are
Speaker 1: left open are Nisa and Spa and Oldie. Really Oldie
Speaker 1: is like is the dominant shop now it's the glow
Speaker 1: on the hill you can see five miles away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you know, I think that's absolutely right, And
Speaker 2: it's debatable, my mother said to me, because she's from Southwold,
Speaker 2: born and bred, so as Southwold as a place that
Speaker 2: is as near as dammit a.
Speaker 1: The police arriving behind you.
Speaker 2: Now that's one of Charlie's friends going off because obviously
Speaker 2: we don't have street lights here, so these sensible young
Speaker 2: people have to wear head torches.
Speaker 1: So being raided.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine that's something that kids in sort of
Speaker 2: urban areas that go so, well, stay where the street
Speaker 2: lights are, you'll be safe. Well, you'd be hard pushed
Speaker 2: to stay near the street lights here because I think
Speaker 2: the nearest ones are in Stowe Market, which is eight
Speaker 2: miles away. But there you go, Southwareses, my mother said
Speaker 2: to me, and she had a bit of a sort
Speaker 2: of start realization because you know, she was a Southwarld girl,
Speaker 2: born and bread and then only what three years ago
Speaker 2: they moved in here to mid Suffolk, into the other house,
Speaker 2: and she she said that, if you think about it,
Speaker 2: the reason why Southwold has stayed as this pretty tweet
Speaker 2: place that people still remember it. It looks much the
Speaker 2: same as it did fifty years ago.
Speaker 3: When I was a boy.
Speaker 2: Is courtesy of the fact that it has gentrified itself
Speaker 2: in a way, because otherwise it would have turned into
Speaker 2: low Stuff, which is one of the most depressed places,
Speaker 2: or a great Yarmouth, which is again another hugely depressed place,
Speaker 2: because that didn't gentrify itself. It didn't say, well, we're
Speaker 2: going to have all these folks live here. And you know,
Speaker 2: Southwold is stuffed with nice little shops, but it isn't
Speaker 2: the place that it used to be. And so I
Speaker 2: guess if you're like a lot of the time when
Speaker 2: because you said, you know, Sirencester isn't real world. Where
Speaker 2: are a lot of rural books, not novels, you know,
Speaker 2: and and crime dramas and if they're not in London,
Speaker 2: they're based in rural areas which are basically the Cotswolds,
Speaker 2: or if it's got a touch of the sea, oh
Speaker 2: it's based in Southwold, because it's place that people imagine
Speaker 2: the countryside is like, they don't actually imagine it that
Speaker 2: it is that you've got to go to the spa
Speaker 2: because that's the only place that you've got to go.
Speaker 2: And the reason why you aren't popping up the pub
Speaker 2: is because your local Green Party counselor bought it cheap
Speaker 2: and has now turned it into something called the Old
Speaker 2: Roseen Crown. And that's the reality in most countryside is
Speaker 2: that you've lost your pubs because no one works on
Speaker 2: farms anymore, and if they do, they ain't they're in
Speaker 2: enough density to keep a pub going. We used to
Speaker 2: have in Finningham, in my little village here, we used
Speaker 2: to have a football team who there's an old cutting
Speaker 2: in the pub put in behind a in a glass case,
Speaker 2: you know, the Finningham Flyers were. There was a sort
Speaker 2: of thing written in nineteen seventy eight how they'd got
Speaker 2: promoted the idea that you could get a football team together.
Speaker 2: Now in Finningham, a village of four hundred and thirty souls,
Speaker 2: was quite doable back in nineteen seventy eight. Now you
Speaker 2: couldn't do that unless it was walking football with a
Speaker 2: zimmer frame, as you think, because most people are either
Speaker 2: very nearly dead or actually dead in my village, or
Speaker 2: otherwise they've moved here for a feeling of light and
Speaker 2: space and they've bought two cottages and knocked him into
Speaker 2: one because much like you say, they've realized it's quite
Speaker 2: cheap here in mid Suffolk compared with the coast, so
Speaker 2: they're now just trying to go and gentrify this place
Speaker 2: into a beige color.
Speaker 1: What happened in my native county Dutchy Kingdom where we
Speaker 1: call it of in the eighties was people started retiring
Speaker 1: from London to there for the cheap houses, and then
Speaker 1: that we sort of rolled into either you inherited your
Speaker 1: parents' home that they retired to in Cornwall and they
Speaker 1: became the family second home, or you then move down
Speaker 1: there when you retired after having rented it out for
Speaker 1: twenty five years. And there's this constant cycle. And that's
Speaker 1: what's happening up in North Wales now. People retired here
Speaker 1: in the nineties and then they started dying off in
Speaker 1: the last twenty years, and then new people have come
Speaker 1: in to retire into those homes. So it's just this
Speaker 1: constant we are sort of the gray tapering out of
Speaker 1: the population. It's all come to these rural areas and
Speaker 1: it's a massive strain on things like hospitals and stuff
Speaker 1: like that because as you get old, you normally have
Speaker 1: more contacts with the NHS and services like that, and
Speaker 1: it means that the orientation of the economy and local
Speaker 1: services goes towards either tourists, people out of work because
Speaker 1: there's no industry left, or the elderly. And that's it
Speaker 1: and loads year three is just screwed.
Speaker 2: Is it the same in Wales that local authorities have
Speaker 2: been handed the battle that they are now responsible for
Speaker 2: social care for financing that to.
Speaker 1: Send budget is about to bankrupt our county council.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can imagine it here. I mean it's
Speaker 2: one of these things. I saw that the latest announcement
Speaker 2: from the pole pot of the of Labor that Castle,
Speaker 2: the woman who runs the education department, might I have
Speaker 2: a bitter and twisted thing about it because she's slapped
Speaker 2: twenty percent VAT on Charlie school fees, which I couldn't
Speaker 2: really afford anyway, and now I can even less afford.
Speaker 3: But anyway, she's saying, oh, yes, we're going to.
Speaker 1: Incorporate the Suffolk problem.
Speaker 3: I know it's a problem. I'm a hedge layer, lot
Speaker 3: of hedge fund manager. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The challenge that that she's set which in a way
Speaker 2: I can get this idea that send kids in a
Speaker 2: special educational needs and difficulties or something that rather than
Speaker 2: sending them off to specialists schools where they can be helped.
Speaker 2: She said that whether she's going to put more resource
Speaker 2: throw more money. Quite where that's going to come from,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but anyway she's going to throw more
Speaker 2: money for true that from the magic money tree. I
Speaker 2: think as Gordon Brown in the background with a little
Speaker 2: sing and printing money. That's what they've given him is
Speaker 2: a job. Now he's retired from mainstream politics. He didn't
Speaker 2: take her and he didn't become a lord to stuff
Speaker 2: that I'm going to print money anyway, So he's she
Speaker 2: said they're going to do that now. It's a fascinating thing,
Speaker 2: this idea that you're going to be able to increase
Speaker 2: the facilities and teacher numbers for special educational needs. When
Speaker 2: you look here in Suffolk we have primary schools which
Speaker 2: are still most of them are on the footprint of
Speaker 2: the little old village schools that we had. They then
Speaker 2: go and say, well we'll close that schools only are
Speaker 2: twenty eight pupils, move all them to that school and
Speaker 2: they've still got the same tiny little footprint, but they've
Speaker 2: decided that this is the place. But most of the
Speaker 2: time their footprint was designed to have sort of forty
Speaker 2: to fifty pupils maximum across the whole school. And now
Speaker 2: they've managed to shoe horn a hundred kids in. And
Speaker 2: now they're going to say, well, everyone who's got a
Speaker 2: special educational need, no only are you going to go
Speaker 2: and be sent to this mainstream school, but you're also
Speaker 2: going to have a teacher plus a helper, and where
Speaker 2: are these how do they physically fit it in. It's
Speaker 2: just something which once again the theory is probably quite sound,
Speaker 2: is that if you have a child who's got all
Speaker 2: the various tisms and NHDT whatever they're called, all that stuff,
Speaker 2: I suppose they might get on better if they're with
Speaker 2: their peers of kids who don't have that, but they
Speaker 2: can't physically fit them in. And then some more on
Speaker 2: in the housing department decided that oh, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: we're going to build loads more houses in villages. Now
Speaker 2: everything's flooded because they've buggered up all the all the
Speaker 2: drains because they've now put another one hundred and forty
Speaker 2: mock Georgian homes in called something ridiculous like the skylarks.
Speaker 3: Holy here we are the lap wings.
Speaker 1: So he's named after things that used to live there before.
Speaker 3: You have that house.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that's right, and now they've died courtesy of
Speaker 2: having this thing there.
Speaker 3: And then the view, yes, and then they put on there.
Speaker 2: These are four bedroom family homes, so presumingly you're trying
Speaker 2: to go and sell them to families who then discover
Speaker 2: to their horror that the primary school in their village.
Speaker 2: They think it's been nice because we can walk the
Speaker 2: kids to school. It's so much nicer than when we
Speaker 2: lived in Hartford or Harlowe or somewhere like that. So
Speaker 2: now we live here and we've got more house because
Speaker 2: it's cheaper. But they've they can't do that because it's
Speaker 2: a full and b it's now full of send kids
Speaker 2: because Bridget Phillipson's decided that every single child has got
Speaker 2: to go and go there. And then they go, let's
Speaker 2: walk down to the village shop. Oh shit, that shop,
Speaker 2: let's go and drink our sorrows away. We can't because
Speaker 2: the local green councilor lives in the old Rosen Crown
Speaker 2: I mean, so they basically turned half the villages in
Speaker 2: Suffolk into dormitories and when I become Prime Minister, I'm
Speaker 2: going to reverse all that every village.
Speaker 3: Yes, can you imagine it? Can you imagine it? Yes?
Speaker 1: Like you say, we've got the we have a slightly
Speaker 1: different situation here because everything has the flavor of Welsh language. Okay,
Speaker 1: up on it and you know, do we have lived
Speaker 1: here a long time? And do we in case you're
Speaker 1: shadowed camerag But it's an element within that as well
Speaker 1: on top of the end budget, so.
Speaker 3: They have to speak Welsh's well.
Speaker 1: There are different schools. You have Welsh language schools where
Speaker 1: the teaching medium is in Welsh or mostly in Welsh,
Speaker 1: and then you have English language schools which have an
Speaker 1: element of Welsh in the education, which means effectively you
Speaker 1: can only have funding for two primary schools per area,
Speaker 1: and all the other village primary schools close and they
Speaker 1: shuttle everyone into like super primary schools.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: So we've got one at the edge of the town
Speaker 1: here which sort of absorbed about four local primary school
Speaker 1: so village schools, including the one in hour village now
Speaker 1: which is about to become houses. Also that they can
Speaker 1: go to one place because it was just the most
Speaker 1: efficient way to run it.
Speaker 3: Who lobbied for that then, Richard that labor.
Speaker 1: Was labor labor here pretty much, but on the send
Speaker 1: thing as well. There's an element of diagnosis, an over diagnosis.
Speaker 1: And I mean it used to be that if you
Speaker 1: were sort of diagnosed with ADHD and you couldn't sit
Speaker 1: dill and you kept doing dangerous things, you just went
Speaker 1: off to go and have a career in forestry or
Speaker 1: something like that, or go and join the army you
Speaker 1: did want to. I've got a friend who works in
Speaker 1: the US on he's a veteran and now he works
Speaker 1: for they called VA Veteran Affairs, so they have their
Speaker 1: thing there and he has been on this long study
Speaker 1: about PDSD. I am going somewhere with this and diagnosis
Speaker 1: of PTSD in the last twenty years in US Armed Forces,
Speaker 1: and there are sort of two schools of thoughts. One
Speaker 1: is that they were at war like we were for
Speaker 1: twenty five years, so that's why there was a massive uptick.
Speaker 1: Another theory is that your payout of effectively your pension
Speaker 1: from the military is linked to the disabilities that you serve.
Speaker 1: You got from service, the service related injuries, so tinatous
Speaker 1: is one brain injury, bad hip, all these things, yeah
Speaker 1: exact say, and if the difference between a eighty percent
Speaker 1: payout and a ninety five percent payout is PTSD and
Speaker 1: it's going to have no one would affect in the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. There is an encouragement to have
Speaker 1: a PTSD diagnosis, is what they found. So for here
Speaker 1: for Send, there is a theory that if basically your
Speaker 1: child is fighting for resources in the public school, in
Speaker 1: the state school system, any edge they can gain in
Speaker 1: terms of support, in terms of extra time in exams,
Speaker 1: in terms of everything else might lead to an encouragement
Speaker 1: of diagnosis. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case, but
Speaker 1: that is one of the theories about parents encouraging a
Speaker 1: SEND diagnosis for their child, And that's why it ballooned.
Speaker 2: It makes sense because it does seem that there's a
Speaker 2: disproportionate amount of kids now with it compared with what
Speaker 2: person Remember.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I was a kid now, that's a
Speaker 1: very difficult thing to imagine. But if I was a
Speaker 1: child now with my gray beard and different parents, I
Speaker 1: think I would have gone to I could even put
Speaker 1: towards that diagnosis. But I have not had that diagnosis,
Speaker 1: and that's what I put on every medical form, but
Speaker 1: the the I suspect my brain is wired that way.
Speaker 1: But it's just part of life for me. And there's
Speaker 1: a whole generation that sort of I think I was
Speaker 1: the last generation that had that, and then after that
Speaker 1: it's become part of an identity you had. But this
Speaker 1: is the sort of thing that would maybe getters thrown
Speaker 1: out of a political debate, you know, this sort of
Speaker 1: conversation because it's we're talking outside the norms of political discussion,
Speaker 1: aren't we. So let's this is a ship segue. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do it. I'm trying to do it now.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get into the segue here of getting
Speaker 1: us through into.
Speaker 3: With your DHD waves.
Speaker 1: Come on, I thought i'd do better than this. Which
Speaker 1: which of the political parties that we're looking at right
Speaker 1: now that might be taken over us that you know,
Speaker 1: when we are in our next war in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: who will be the prime minister?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 1: What color rosette while they were? How do they stack
Speaker 1: up against each other in terms of things actually matter
Speaker 1: to us in our podcast?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is the I believe the most important question
Speaker 2: you asked, Yes.
Speaker 3: I'm a writer, you know exactly. It does all wonderful things.
Speaker 3: If he comes offrom mushrooms, so he's rubbish.
Speaker 1: If we're going to have five five attempts at it and
Speaker 1: be able to edit it in word whatever.
Speaker 3: We'll do that.
Speaker 2: If we were one of those really posh podcasts, we're
Speaker 2: go and cut Amy, Let's go and try it again. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but we're not. We are shooting from the hip. I
Speaker 2: think it's an important question. Richard, the poor old man,
Speaker 2: drink more cider. You'll be fine. I've just realized this
Speaker 2: is seven point nine proof. Seven point three.
Speaker 3: Gosh, that's very strong.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I think it's very important because obviously we have
Speaker 2: just had the Gorton and Denton by election who was
Speaker 2: which is won by the Greens, and I bizarrely have
Speaker 2: a green MP here in the Waveny Valley, and I
Speaker 2: have to say, I don't know Hannah Watsonface, the greyhound
Speaker 2: owner from Gorton and Denton.
Speaker 1: The property portfolioty.
Speaker 2: Portfolio plumber, how green she is? I don't know, because
Speaker 2: the problem is is that they never actually say anything
Speaker 2: that is green. They don't talk about anything. I mean,
Speaker 2: I actually used Ai under your sort of advice to
Speaker 2: look at stuff, and I just typed in, according to Hansard,
Speaker 2: how often has Adrian Ramsey mentioned gaza in questions or
Speaker 2: speeches in the House of Commons? And it came up
Speaker 2: with a lot, And I said, how often has he
Speaker 2: mentioned agricultural property relief? Bearing in mind he is the
Speaker 2: MP for the most agricultural constituency in England And it
Speaker 2: said once, And it then goes and gives you all
Speaker 2: the various sort of links to what he's talked about,
Speaker 2: and I thought, well, actually, if you think about as
Speaker 2: a constituency MP, that's poor because this is the thing
Speaker 2: that actually makes this ultimately. Farming is important here because
Speaker 2: most of the ancillary jobs in some way, shape or
Speaker 2: form related to farming. You know, if you look at
Speaker 2: the largest employers around here, they're chicken factories, duck factories,
Speaker 2: grain factories, malting factories, and that's about it, you know,
Speaker 2: other than farming. So they all need farming. But secondly,
Speaker 2: then I looked into actually environmental concerns and a lot
Speaker 2: of his environmental concerns weren't locally based. They were talking
Speaker 2: about farrowing crates, which we don't actually have the pharaoh
Speaker 2: and crazy. He was complaining about a lot of his
Speaker 2: staff was based upon Green Manifesto policies. And he did
Speaker 2: mutter a bit about rural dentistry. He hasn't done nothing
Speaker 2: about it. There's no more dentists have suddenly appeared since
Speaker 2: he's come in. He talked about buses, which is quite
Speaker 2: funny because I actually bothered speaking to the man who
Speaker 2: runs the local galowaies, the local bus company, and I said,
Speaker 2: you know, run Galloway, you know, not George.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I was going to say it's an unfortunate association.
Speaker 2: He's a funny man with a true we hat on. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's sort of shaking his fill in politics. Yes, I
Speaker 2: asked him. I said, you know, could you actually run
Speaker 2: more buses? And he said, not on your nell. He said,
Speaker 2: because every single rural bus service that we run runs
Speaker 2: at a loss. And the any reason we run them
Speaker 2: is because we have got the schools contract and anyway
Speaker 2: we can get the school's contract is to run the
Speaker 2: rural bus service for the old deers and one or
Speaker 2: two students who might use it, or people who are
Speaker 2: currently under a driving band due to their lax adherence
Speaker 2: to the drink driving rules and you know, when you
Speaker 2: think about it, most of the questions that he's asked
Speaker 2: here have got no relevance to us and the Green
Speaker 2: ideal because we are arguably should be manner from heaven
Speaker 2: for him, because we're a big farming community. We've got
Speaker 2: lots and lots of farms here who are environmentally saying.
Speaker 2: So I would say, in answer to your question, certainly
Speaker 2: not the Greens. Who would you think might represent our credo?
Speaker 3: Richard?
Speaker 1: This is my problem with all of this because I
Speaker 1: know we talk. You know, people think they listen to
Speaker 1: us talk and they assume our politics. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the time I am I am at the
Speaker 1: point of dirtying my ballot next time because I am
Speaker 1: dismayed with the whole system. Not because I think that
Speaker 1: you know that there is there's no point in a
Speaker 1: democratic process, but just because nothing I see aligns with
Speaker 1: what I think. So anything, any vote or any backing
Speaker 1: would have to be the least worst option. I suppose
Speaker 1: what party politics always has been is the you find
Speaker 1: the one that's that's least worst and then go for
Speaker 1: that unless you are are you effectively are in that tribe,
Speaker 1: and it is a tribal thing you've always done that thing.
Speaker 1: Your family's always voted Labor, you've always been a Tory,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and you just vote along with that
Speaker 1: because it's part of your identity. The well, that's something.
Speaker 1: Let's run through the parties here, so we have the
Speaker 1: ones currently in government, we have the Labor Party. So
Speaker 1: we've got big ed or little ed very much into
Speaker 1: the net zero. Yeah, so this is this is one
Speaker 1: of the first things is that is net zero everyone
Speaker 1: has decided is a green issue.
Speaker 3: Mhm.
Speaker 1: It's really it's a resource issue. It's a pot resource
Speaker 1: policy issue, but it's not. It is green in the
Speaker 1: sense that it affects things like the atmosphere and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and it's not I'm trying to dodge around
Speaker 1: the the wording here that basically it completely removes It
Speaker 1: ignores everything like pollution, habitat loss, habitat disturbed, removal of
Speaker 1: species from a landscape, changes in policy. That means that
Speaker 1: nature itself is actually further down the order of priority
Speaker 1: for any business or any landowner or anything else like
Speaker 1: that because the pushes towards net zero. But it's always
Speaker 1: painted as this renewable energy, low greenhouse emissions and low
Speaker 1: carbon emission will effectively fix everything else. I don't. I
Speaker 1: still don't follow how that's going to work. But you
Speaker 1: have that and then the biodiversity side of things, and
Speaker 1: that it's there are policies. I think there has been
Speaker 1: some labor support for the beavers and through rewilding, but
Speaker 1: that tends to per MP level.
Speaker 2: Rather they dip their toe in the water. I think
Speaker 2: because they were surprised. I mean they had eighty some
Speaker 2: odd mystery MPs suddenly here and went, what with one
Speaker 2: of these rural seats? And they had no idea. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've got to chap up the road from us. Who
Speaker 2: is in? He won the seat from Liz Truss southwest.
Speaker 3: North of a guy called the hospital Pass. Really yeah,
Speaker 3: I know Terry Jermy labor MP. Sorry Terry Jermy j E.
Speaker 2: R M y.
Speaker 1: Is he a character from viz?
Speaker 3: It does?
Speaker 2: Terry Jermy. He's very Jermy. He's currently got cold. He
Speaker 2: looks a bit like a bus driver like he's sort
Speaker 2: of but he's a younger bus driver. But to give
Speaker 2: him his jew now, I'm going to lay my cards
Speaker 2: on the table here. I hate with every fiber of
Speaker 2: my being socialism because I just think it's an antithesis
Speaker 2: to what freedom really is.
Speaker 3: But I can still.
Speaker 2: I can still hold my tongue when I hear someone
Speaker 2: who thinks, okay, you believe in what you're talking. And
Speaker 2: he said to me when I actually interviewed him, he said,
Speaker 2: I didn't think I was going to win this. I
Speaker 2: never thought I was going to because when when they
Speaker 2: announced it, he said, if you look at the film
Speaker 2: of when they sort of cut too on election night
Speaker 2: and they said and it said Jermy and went, shit,
Speaker 2: I've won, and he went, it just doesn't happen here
Speaker 2: in southwest Norfolk. It's blue and that's it. And he won.
Speaker 2: His advisor is a former deputy head of the Norfolk
Speaker 2: Wildlife Trust, and I hasten to add the Norfolk Wildlife
Speaker 2: Trust aren't complete buffoons like the Suffolk Wildlife Trust who are.
Speaker 2: But and he is now his constituency officer. And when
Speaker 2: I spoke to him when we went to go and
Speaker 2: lobby about agricultural property relief, Terry Jermy is an old
Speaker 2: fashioned socialist. He's believe he would certainly be more on
Speaker 2: the left, but he realized that he was representing a
Speaker 2: very agricultural constituency and to give him his due. In
Speaker 2: the APR vote what they call it something fifty sub
Speaker 2: section fifty vote on it, He abstained. I know there
Speaker 2: was that chap up in Cumbria voted again it. But
Speaker 2: I spoke to toe Germany.
Speaker 3: He said.
Speaker 2: Look, he said, I think this is a bonker's idea,
Speaker 2: and I know that my constituents aren't actually these fat
Speaker 2: cats that the chancellor is claiming they are, he said.
Speaker 2: But if I vote against it, I will be expelled
Speaker 2: from the party. He said, So therefore, if I'm going
Speaker 2: to actually vote, use my vote wisely and lobby from
Speaker 2: within the party, I have. The best I can do
Speaker 2: is abstain. And I thought I can buy that that
Speaker 2: is a sense of you know, the fact of how
Speaker 2: politics works is so stupid, is that if they tell
Speaker 2: you you've got to vote this way and you say no.
Speaker 2: I think my constituents say the majority of them things,
Speaker 2: this is a bad idea. So therefo I'm going to
Speaker 2: represent my constituency, you would be expelled from your party.
Speaker 2: So the best he could do was abstain. And I
Speaker 2: believe he has looked tried to as best as he
Speaker 2: humanly can to within being a labor and Pete to
Speaker 2: look after farming in his constituency. But is he truly
Speaker 2: a friend of nature. Well, he's a friend of nature
Speaker 2: in the respect that he slightly gets blindsided by oh, rewilding.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean is that he would
Speaker 2: be a be beaver botherer. He would think that's a
Speaker 2: good idea.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's there's a kind of a global
Speaker 1: messaging as well that certain things are just better. Planting
Speaker 1: trees are better, reintroduction of species is better. But nobody
Speaker 1: really wants to expend the dopamine of looking into why
Speaker 1: is it better? What effect will it have? Will it
Speaker 1: actually work in the real world where humans live, or
Speaker 1: will only work on paper?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: And if one more person mentions yellowstone wolves and landscapes
Speaker 1: to me, I'm going to nail the foot to the
Speaker 1: floor because it didn't work. Then that's not the narrative.
Speaker 1: Isn't what you see in the meme or the little
Speaker 1: Facebook post or whatever.
Speaker 2: And if you want to know what the tories are like,
Speaker 2: just look at Ben Goldsmith, because he seems to think
Speaker 2: that as long as you throw exotic species that died
Speaker 2: out here before the ice age, is all going to
Speaker 2: be brilliant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's this rest of you know that is
Speaker 1: a thing for a lot of the real green advocates
Speaker 1: in parties, there is sort of this vague assertion that
Speaker 1: if you return to an earlier state, everything was better,
Speaker 1: which I can agree with. But as I've mentioned in
Speaker 1: previous podcasts, what are we going to do with the
Speaker 1: population density of humans that we have that already exists
Speaker 1: in that space and need it for it? You know
Speaker 1: the other economic things you have? Are we going to
Speaker 1: start culling? Are we going to start removing people forcibly?
Speaker 1: Are we going to have a massive population reduction program
Speaker 1: over the next two three centuries? Like you know, is
Speaker 1: this a Thomas Malthus supported green policy, which is this
Speaker 1: idea that there are too many people we need to
Speaker 1: protect our resources and go and remove them. That is
Speaker 1: often the way that some of these policies would work
Speaker 1: is if there weren't people in the way. And that's
Speaker 1: sort of the problem with socialism as well, because utterly
Speaker 1: it works on paper assuming that humans don't have a
Speaker 1: say in it, But the moment humans and human nature
Speaker 1: actually comes into it, is it Hobbes is a hobbesy
Speaker 1: and things, which is basically, which is basically you're all
Speaker 1: you're born as savages and you have to Civilization is
Speaker 1: something that you learn and you develop and has to
Speaker 1: be earned within your lifetime. That that is true human nature,
Speaker 1: and that that's why socialism only works in this ideal
Speaker 1: petridish world, but the other end doesn't work as well.
Speaker 1: So instead you have to have this muddy mix in between,
Speaker 1: which is effectively old school English liberalism, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: somewhere bit of both.
Speaker 2: So therefore, I think the interesting thing, so who then
Speaker 2: represents the country slide listenership best is that I don't
Speaker 2: think it can be labor because they are just too urban.
Speaker 2: They are a result of urban and they will always
Speaker 2: default to that.
Speaker 3: It can't be the.
Speaker 2: Greens because they're clearly nutters. I mean, they are not green.
Speaker 2: In actual fact, I put a thing on Twitter today
Speaker 2: is that I was looking at some of the stuff
Speaker 2: in the aftermath of the Iran shenanigans.
Speaker 3: That's going on.
Speaker 1: We're still going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, well when this comes live, I mean it
Speaker 2: may be the fact that Iran, No, wasn't that a country.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this as a patron on Thursday,
Speaker 1: don't look at the flash.
Speaker 2: No boom, Look at that. Yeah, this could be the
Speaker 2: last voices you ever hear.
Speaker 3: Isn't that awful?
Speaker 2: The thought is that basically it's Brita and me the
Speaker 2: last things you're.
Speaker 1: Here threads film the bomb on Sheffield. I didn't see
Speaker 1: that bit.
Speaker 2: Of a two idiots. I'm going to be the one
Speaker 2: key looking traffic warden anyway, I don't the Greens. They're
Speaker 2: clearly not environmental. I'm sure at some point they were.
Speaker 2: I think they're quite environmental when they were the British
Speaker 2: Union of Fascists, you know, backwards where they started.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Their Wikipedia article sort of seems to suggest that
Speaker 1: they started in the seventies out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, funny that isn't it thirties? No, they ignored all
Speaker 2: the thirties bit. That's a bit uncomfortable, you know. It's
Speaker 2: funny because of course I live one village away from
Speaker 2: where the Soil Association was founded, and there is an
Speaker 2: Eve Balfer Way, because of course Ive Balfa being the
Speaker 2: founder of the Soil Association. What they don't have in
Speaker 2: that particular village is the jury and jenks Lane, who
Speaker 2: was the person who actually wrote all her stuff down
Speaker 2: and put it into a manifesto because Juri and Jenks
Speaker 2: was the agricultural advisor for the British Union of Fascists
Speaker 2: under Moseley. And if you do remind the Greens that
Speaker 2: they started off from a bunch of fascists and haven't
Speaker 2: really changed very much since then, they get really irate.
Speaker 3: So let's park them with labor.
Speaker 2: They're not anything really because although there are a few
Speaker 2: outliers like Terry Jermy and that chap up north with
Speaker 2: a double barreled name whose father does happen to be
Speaker 2: quite a large farmer, which might help if we're.
Speaker 1: A real podcast, would have worked out his name.
Speaker 3: I can't remember it.
Speaker 2: It's some ridiculous sort of double barrowed name, which probably
Speaker 2: really was the only stumbling block that he had.
Speaker 1: Okay, George Baron Sandy, that's it.
Speaker 2: Yes, fineal working class name, So you got him. But
Speaker 2: then you come to the Conservatives. Now I don't trust
Speaker 2: the Conservatives anymore because although we are used to be
Speaker 2: a card carrying Tory, I thought, do you know what
Speaker 2: really did it for me was that arguably the greenest
Speaker 2: party that we have had in the sort of modern
Speaker 2: context of Greens has been the Tories under Bloody Boris Johnson,
Speaker 2: but I mean they were the ones who are actually
Speaker 2: doing proper sort of environmental stuff. They almost turned elms
Speaker 2: into some sort of batshit mental stuff. But when it
Speaker 2: came to a sort of people who actually perhaps were
Speaker 2: funding farming properly, they were I think Michie Sunak and
Speaker 2: Michael Gove when he was deaferent Minister and one of
Speaker 2: two of those sorts of people I'm talking about, not
Speaker 2: in the distance past currently they weren't too shoddy. They
Speaker 2: sort of treated the countryside farming and its industries and
Speaker 2: its people like we weren't three headed monsters. But then
Speaker 2: when it was announced that DEFRA realized that they were
Speaker 2: a bit shit and that none of their people knew
Speaker 2: a flipping plow from a hat stand, and said, well,
Speaker 2: we're going to go and teach them how to go
Speaker 2: and know a plow from a hat stand, and we're
Speaker 2: going to send them off to Loddington under the GWC
Speaker 2: to go and learn it. The Tories are such a
Speaker 2: bunch of ars wipes that all they could do was
Speaker 2: winge because they were actually improving the knowledge of DEPHRA.
Speaker 2: And I can't remember the name of the shadow Defhora Minister.
Speaker 2: But she's a complete buffoon as well, because she's just
Speaker 2: any opportunity to go and say, oh, well, the labor
Speaker 2: are rubbish. They can never say that's quite a sensible idea. Actually, yes,
Speaker 2: spending six hundred and fifty grand in improving the knowledge
Speaker 2: base of the Dephrah civil servants is a poor is
Speaker 2: a waste of money. How can it be a waste
Speaker 2: of money? Yes, it's easy to say, yes, you should
Speaker 2: recruit from all loads of people who've sort of a
Speaker 2: farmer's sons and daughters and they've done three years at
Speaker 2: Harper Adams. Yes, that would be the idea, But that
Speaker 2: hasn't happened. So therefore you've got all these people, so
Speaker 2: try and train them so they actually do understand a
Speaker 2: little bit about farming and the countryside and conservation. So
Speaker 2: let's send them to Loddington. I mean, can you imagine
Speaker 2: if Labour had turned around and said we're going to
Speaker 2: send them to RSBP Hope farm Will it'd be disastrous.
Speaker 2: But at least they're sending them off to a sensible
Speaker 2: place like Loddington where they can see it all there.
Speaker 2: But oh no, the shadow Defhorah minister had to go
Speaker 2: and say that, oh, this was a profligate waste of money.
Speaker 3: No, we're finally left with reform.
Speaker 1: Yes, where are they at Richard, Well, basically as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell, because they've got virtually no policy
Speaker 1: information out there. Anything, anything that's a hint of climate
Speaker 1: and nature is a bit too expensive, so we're not
Speaker 1: going to do it. Seems to be their overarching theory.
Speaker 1: And that's something I wonder if we're going to see
Speaker 1: put to the test in Wales in May, because we've
Speaker 1: got our elections coming up soon and pretty much the
Speaker 1: predictions here are it's either going to be reform applied
Speaker 1: or reform implied. Labor who have been in power in
Speaker 1: Wales ever since devolution twenty years ago, they are going
Speaker 1: to be wiped out. So if and this is something
Speaker 1: that is you know, because my work increasingly involves a
Speaker 1: bit of you know, stuff that is funded by policy
Speaker 1: and funded by land management and things like that, a
Speaker 1: bit like yours. We've got our sustainable farming scheme here,
Speaker 1: which is s FI on steroids. It actually looks quite good,
Speaker 1: but it's going to be quite expensive, so it would
Speaker 1: be a very easy thing for reform to come into
Speaker 1: in Wales and say, well, you see this really expensive
Speaker 1: farming scheme, we're just going to get rid of it
Speaker 1: and instead we're going to go back to how it
Speaker 1: used to work, which is if you've got two thousand sheep,
Speaker 1: we're going to pay you per sheep, and that's and
Speaker 1: headage payments. It's a real possibility, so much so that
Speaker 1: natural Resources Whales, our sort of our natural england aren't
Speaker 1: just kind of said they're not going to do that
Speaker 1: much or make any policy changes, or make any massive
Speaker 1: changes until May. They're going to see what money they
Speaker 1: actually have. Yeah, unless all they're going to do is
Speaker 1: maybe a retreat from a responsibility and say they're not
Speaker 1: going to do something that they used to do. So
Speaker 1: I think with reform, it's particularly for reform voters if
Speaker 1: you go via social media, reverse or from anything that's
Speaker 1: expensive and hard work would actually be their policy. Say
Speaker 1: we'll climate change net zero is expensive and stupid, We're
Speaker 1: not going to do it. Instead, we're going to drill, baby, drill,
Speaker 1: and we're going to open up the north Sea oil fields,
Speaker 1: which actually, given the current war, might not be the
Speaker 1: worst idea as well as much again, it will be
Speaker 1: seen as this will provide jobs and provide income, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people who would vote reform and may
Speaker 1: be skeptical of anything involving climate policy. So the same
Speaker 1: thing for environmental laws, anything that seemed as being red tape.
Speaker 1: You can almost say the only things they'll keep are
Speaker 1: anything that was portrayed positively in Clarkson's Farm. That's my bet.
Speaker 1: If clarks and Farm made it sound good, they'll keep it.
Speaker 1: If the Clarkson's Farm made it sound like red tape
Speaker 1: and needless bureaucratic mess, then they'll get rid of it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean this is we know people
Speaker 1: involved in some of the policy making for this, but
Speaker 1: as we also know what is written in policy before
Speaker 1: the election and what actually manifests six weeks later are
Speaker 1: often very very different things.
Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed, do you know, I think you are nailed
Speaker 2: on and the problem is you take them back. I
Speaker 2: think I think the biggest challenge that reform has is
Speaker 2: that people currently want them because they are different, yes,
Speaker 2: and they have looked at the Greens and they go, no,
Speaker 2: you're just weird, and that I think Gordon Denton is
Speaker 2: probably going to be an absolute wake up call in
Speaker 2: that a lot of people went that is terrible. You know,
Speaker 2: how on earth could the Green Party play such court
Speaker 2: to a sort of a religious based group of individuals
Speaker 2: who clearly are not progressive of the left.
Speaker 1: It's a balkanization of British politics.
Speaker 2: Correct, correct, completely bonkers. So therefore, this is my suggestion
Speaker 2: to listeners of Countryside. I am going off tomorrow, so
Speaker 2: when you hear this, I'll have already been. But I'm
Speaker 2: going off tomorrow to a meeting. This is why we're
Speaker 2: recording this actually on a Monday. I'm going off to
Speaker 2: literally explains a linear nature of time.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's time.
Speaker 2: It stretches a bit like that that Bloka used to
Speaker 2: be in that band in the nineties. You said things
Speaker 2: could only get better and outstairs at the stars.
Speaker 3: How wrong was he? The mug?
Speaker 2: But anyway, I'm going off to a meeting of reform
Speaker 2: because I'm of the opinion is that if you are
Speaker 2: and we have lots of people who actually work hands
Speaker 2: on in the countryside doing proper stuff. You know, we
Speaker 2: have foresters, we have farmers, we have gamekeepers, we have
Speaker 2: people who put in more to the countryside than they
Speaker 2: take out. And I think you should because it's likely
Speaker 2: the reform are going to be in the shakeup for
Speaker 2: the next government, and I think they're still looking around
Speaker 2: for policy, and I think they're looking around for authentic voices.
Speaker 2: But I think most importantly where you really hit the
Speaker 2: nail line is that they want stuff which is cheap
Speaker 2: or at least gives value for money so they can
Speaker 2: see a return it. It's not just all cuddly and
Speaker 2: fluffy or just different to what the last government did.
Speaker 3: And so therefore, if you've got the.
Speaker 2: Data that hedge laying increases these bird numbers by that, yeah,
Speaker 2: well I don't really care about birds.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 2: But it also goes and access with a capillary effect,
Speaker 2: so therefore it retains moisture, it stops soil erosion, and
Speaker 2: it also reduced costs in filtration of water because it
Speaker 2: reduces night rate runoff. They go good like it, and
Speaker 2: then you come up with a policy. Do you like
Speaker 2: the idea of But do you know what, I don't
Speaker 2: think everyone should be paying for this, but all these
Speaker 2: people who want to bask in the reflected glory of
Speaker 2: a Greenham pleasant land that is England or Wales or Scotland.
Speaker 2: That if you're a company who wants to go and
Speaker 2: slap green and pleasant land on your branding. Then you
Speaker 2: can fund this and you will be rewarded through the
Speaker 2: taxation system of corporate tax. And if you went and
Speaker 2: suggested something like that to reform, they might go, Okay,
Speaker 2: scheme me that out. Then, mister forester, tell me how
Speaker 2: that you think of our forestry guys. You know, we've
Speaker 2: got a lot of people who work in woods who
Speaker 2: listen to us, and they're always complaining.
Speaker 1: Quite right legitimately rather than just resolutely.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, then you've got a new bunch of politicians
Speaker 2: here who actually haven't a bloody scooby doo about a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff because they're all like bankers and business
Speaker 2: people who do stuff who don't really understand where wood
Speaker 2: comes from. We'll go and tell them and tell them
Speaker 2: what the need is, give them a few facts and figures.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to go off to a reform meeting
Speaker 2: and go and listen to some ex copper going and
Speaker 2: signed worlds that we used to beat up all the
Speaker 2: legs in London and go and say we haven't got
Speaker 2: any legs here. What we do of as hair courses
Speaker 2: and people who nick red diesel, So right, Nick, all them,
Speaker 2: that's fine. But what I really want to tell you
Speaker 2: about is this, And I think you've got to for once,
Speaker 2: probably in a generation, two generations, probably for the first time,
Speaker 2: for since the Labor Party started, you've got the opportunity,
Speaker 2: as a layman, as a joe public to go to
Speaker 2: a party and say, I think this is a policy
Speaker 2: you should run and if it's sensible and it's got
Speaker 2: legs and it's got financial backing, you could do it.
Speaker 2: So ignore all the stuff about flipping, sending people back
Speaker 2: to different countries, all the stuff that you've got a
Speaker 2: party there who could save the countryside or they could
Speaker 2: be the worst thing that happened to the country side
Speaker 2: since plowing right up to the margin. And if we
Speaker 2: are plowing right up to the margin and we don't
Speaker 2: have any yellow hammers and gray partridges anymore, and we've
Speaker 2: lost all that nature recovery that we were happening because
Speaker 2: reform get in and they haven't listened to you, If
Speaker 2: you haven't told them why we this is important and
Speaker 2: how we can make it happen, and we can make
Speaker 2: and make it happen cost effectively, then it's your own fault.
Speaker 2: And you can't winge and then that's my opinion, is
Speaker 2: the reform of the great unknown. We just know that
Speaker 2: all the other ones are completely shit.
Speaker 1: I've got nothing else to add to that. I'm going
Speaker 1: to put something out here though, And we haven't talked
Speaker 1: about this now, you know, as two thirds of the
Speaker 1: hosting team, I'm not talked about this at all. We've
Speaker 1: got well, it was meant to be what twenty twenty
Speaker 1: nine for the next election. Yeah, I think it's going
Speaker 1: to come sooner than that. Probably if you are the
Speaker 1: comms person or one of the on one, two, three, four, five, six,
Speaker 1: maybe seven main political parties, or your Binnie mcbin face
Speaker 1: or was it count bin face. If you're one of
Speaker 1: these and you want to come on our show and
Speaker 1: talk about a your rural policy and what you intend
Speaker 1: to do for the countryside, I think we have to
Speaker 1: adhere to some sort of laws around party political broadcast,
Speaker 1: but we can give you an interview that is open
Speaker 1: to all of the parties. Come on here, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about things, and we'll give you a fair airing and
Speaker 1: we won't hit you with sticks or anything like that,
Speaker 1: or or talk about our country ways. But this stuff
Speaker 1: is important to us, and it's important to everyone to
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast, and I think it would be
Speaker 1: important to the nation once it's gone. It's the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that if it went away, if the British
Speaker 1: countryside as we know it went away, which it sort
Speaker 1: of is in a lot of ways, the loss would
Speaker 1: be missed. The loss would be noticed, but it'd be
Speaker 1: noticed after the fact. And there is a time to
Speaker 1: arrest it. There is a time to fix it. There
Speaker 1: is a time to put it in a certain direction.
Speaker 1: But that time is now, not when everyone suddenly starts
Speaker 1: caring about it. So what do you think should we
Speaker 1: have people on most definitely we'll put this out and
Speaker 1: if you are a listener and you have some sway
Speaker 1: with your political party, you know, send this on.
Speaker 3: Yes do.
Speaker 2: But here's the suggestion, right, is that if we're going
Speaker 2: to do this properly, we should have people who are
Speaker 2: representatives of forestry, farming, gangkeeping.
Speaker 1: Like a Witton.
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically if we could have four of us, so
Speaker 2: someone who's doing it, but someone who is from either
Speaker 2: of their geographical area or you know of, or from
Speaker 2: one of the major industries of the countryside, who could
Speaker 2: ask from their particular area county lines. Yeah, okay, we'll
Speaker 2: do that. That's what we're going to do. Because this
Speaker 2: is Country Slide and we are rebellious.
Speaker 1: So we'll workshop this idea a little bit further into
Speaker 1: something that won't get it. We'll have to check the
Speaker 1: legality of it in terms of party political broadcasts and
Speaker 1: things like that. I think we have to bring someone
Speaker 1: on for balance, don't we, But we can had invited
Speaker 1: Kamala and Trump on and only only Trump came on
Speaker 1: and Trump won, so and not so one. We're as
Speaker 1: big as the Joe Rogan podcast. Now we we're up there.
Speaker 2: So we're going to get Terry Jermy and William Klaus
Speaker 2: and the rest of them. They may just not turn up.
Speaker 2: And so therefore, as far as Country Slide polling is concerned,
Speaker 2: it's a neck and neck race between Labor and the SDP.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, right, Well that's the main show sorted out.
Speaker 1: So we're now we're watch the after show for patrons,
Speaker 1: and well, thank you and sorry goodbye.