Tim Bonner 🇺🇦

Countryside Alliance @CAupdates Chief Exec also fish, ducks, cricket, hounds, dogs & other country stuff tim-bonner(at)

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

My comment piece in @thetimes ‘Labour is losing the countryside all over again’

https://t.co/To4PYYes5S

[Countryside Alliance @CAupdates]

New analysis from the Countryside Alliance shows that rural people pay almost £500 more a year on petrol than people living in towns and cities.

[Countryside Alliance @CAupdates]

In the countryside, driving is a necessity.

Rural residents and businesses cannot always rely on public transport. Rising fuel costs hit household budgets, jobs and local businesses.

This Budget, it’s time for a rural reset. Write to the Prime Minister asking for a rural reset - https://t.co/as3eOzwupO

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

“Rural residents have to drive further and pay more for every litre, which is why they are spending nearly £500 a year more than people in towns and cities” me in @TheSun as Treasury signals fuel duty freeze https://t.co/H2aai6Iux5

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

In which I dissect Defra’s plans to license game shooting which, in a crowded field, would rank as amongst the most stupid and politically damaging rural policies of recent times @CAupdates

[Shooting Times @ShootingTimes]

Licensing gamebird shooting means banning it first, writes the Countryside Alliance’s Tim Bonner, and a licence that can be pulled without warning would stop anyone investing in a shoot. https://t.co/k0rEAhv7uT

[GBGB @GreyhoundBoard]

A huge thank you to those who travelled to No. 10 @downingstreet and No. 10 North to deliver a letter to Prime Minister @andyburnham, signed by over 1,000 people from across greyhound racing 👏

Those 1,000+ names are trainers, kennel staff, vets, caterers, bookmakers, track workers and more. Together they’re the heart of a sport that has brought communities together for 100 years.

Our ask is simple: fairness.

From April 2027, the tax on online bets is set to rise from 15% to 25%. UK horse racing has been exempted. Greyhound racing hasn’t. This exemption is the right thing to do - but it needs to be applied to us as well.

Greyhound racing supports 7,000 jobs, contributes £160m a year to the economy and gives people an affordable night out that’s been part of local life for generations. That’s worth protecting. Our sport is worth protecting.

With the Budget just days away, here’s how you can help:

✅ Write to your MP and ask them to back the same exemption for greyhound racing as horse racing
✅ Share this post
✅ Visit your local track to show your support

Let’s show what our sport means to so many people 🐾

#BackOurTracks #GreyhoundRacing #Budget2026

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

“We like our roast chicken and our bacon sandwiches and are not going to give them up at the whim of tech bros and celebrities”.

Me on the latest vegan anti-farming campaign.

https://t.co/bU0cw61TDL

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

@ScarecrowNeste1 @Birduder344 1.5 million migrants. Numbers rising. Harvest absolutely sustainable.

[Mo Metcalf-Fisher @mometfisher]

Scrap the awful family farm tax. Ditch harmful policies impacting the countryside. Rural reset now!

[Francis Buner @fbuner]

Myth or fact?
'The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world'.
This🧵explains how a scientic finding is wrongly used to lament the UK's biodiversity crisis, especially on farmland.
https://t.co/hOhz3UTahY

[Countryside Alliance @CAupdates]

Trail hunting is an important part of rural Britain and the communities that sustain it.

For too long, rural communities have felt overlooked by policymakers. At the launch of our Campaign for the Countryside, we asked people why it's so important that the countryside has a voice in decisions that affect it.

#RuralReset #CampaignForTheCountryside #TrailHunting

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

My piece on Keir Starmer’s toxic trail hunting legacy

“Starmer’s successor, Andy Burnham, has been left with a manifesto commitment that is a million miles from his stated priorities and a process towards legislation which is already underway”

https://t.co/3zKlzOE6QE

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

This…

[Francis Buner @fbuner]

@TrooperSnooks @p4rus We are not the most nature depleted country. That's just a myth. We are one of the most human altered countries, i.e. one with the least amount of truly wild places. Our biodiversity is actually quite high for a small country, partly as a result of human intervention.

[Countryside Alliance @CAupdates]

It's time for a rural reset - we've written to the Chancellor urging him to take ten first steps this Budget to work with the countryside.

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

@ScarecrowNeste1 Have to say I thought the results of the last survey were odd. Increase in Eng, increase in Wales, but both negated by a big drop in Highland Scotland. Given the scale of tree planting and regeneration in the North that just didn’t make sense to me.

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

This is very good on ‘The Rural Penalty’ people in the countryside face when trying to access healthcare. We need growth in every postcode, but also equal service provision too.

https://t.co/LApn00oCJI

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

And, of course, no discussion of habitat which, certainly in my part of the world (Herts/ Essex) is the major issue. We have few breeding woodcock because we have little undergrowth in our woodland. We have no undergrowth because we have far, far too many deer and little woodland management.

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

So why seek to impose your solution across the country? 1.5 million migratory woodcock arrive in the UK every winter. That population is stable or growing and the current harvest is clearly sustainable. Woodcock breed rarely or not at all in some areas and with common sense the impact on UK breeders can be (and is) minimised.

[Tim Bonner 🇺🇦 @CA_TimB]

Great campaign from @GreyhoundBoard Always remember that animal rights does not equal animal welfare

[Abbie MacGregor @AbbieMacGregor3]

She thought greyhound racing was cruel.

Until she saw it with her own eyes.

Listen to her story, in her own words 👇🏻

Seeing Is Believing, our new campaign, launches today.

[Countryside Alliance Press Office @CApressoffice]

📍Next stop: Birmingham for Conservative Party Conference.

We look forward to welcoming attendees to our upcoming panel discussion taking place on Monday 5 October 2026 (secure zone- pass required)

Speakers: @CA_TimB @VictoriaAtkins @Katie_Lam_MP and @AJNewbury94 #cpc26

[AJ Cassavell @AJCassavell]

The Padres steamrolled the Cubs and are NLDS bound. Holy Sheets. https://t.co/5zsZElw55U