Geoffrey Bastard

🇬🇧Cornish Expat. Agriculture🌾 Head of Marketing & Plant Health UK & IE at FMC. Amateur Oenologue. CrossFit. Views my Own.

[Clive Bailye @TWBFarms]

How many family farms survive this?

And if they don’t, does the UK countryside change forever?

https://t.co/RbRDQ3pFgV

#Farming #Agriculture #FoodSecurity #Farmers #BritishFarming #FoodPrices #CostOfLiving #Wheat #Fertiliser #Diesel #RuralBritain #FoodProduction #UKFarming @Telegraph @CAAV_UK

[Geoffrey Bastard @Geoffrey_RB]

🌾Smallest 🌧️ shower last night & forecast disappeared for next weekend but @ragtseedsuk Laureate S Barley growing well. Drilled 18/04 @FMCAgroUK #Harvest26

[Ben Graham @BenGrahamUK]

75% of Brits want North Sea oil & gas.

That’s not a fringe view, it’s the majority.

Energy policy should reflect reality, not ideology.

Go all in on the North Sea.
Back nuclear.
Secure Britain’s future.

The renewables debate is over.

[Geoffrey Bastard @Geoffrey_RB]

🤯 Who is so poorly creating the ROI plans/budgets on these projects?! HS2 included. UK will soon bankrupt itself with its general levels of wastage/inefficiency. Is there a single Maths GCSE amongst them? #Economics

[LBC @LBC]

Stonehenge tunnel officially scrapped - after more than £179,000,000 spent on plan https://t.co/KJuaO3a7RS

[James Graham @jamesnigraham]

We used to produce fertiliser in Britain.

The last major site producing Ammonia closed in 2022 due to high energy prices. Nobody cared. Fertiliser doesn’t excite politicians.

Just one example of an industrial output sacrificed to Net Zero. All costs passed onto the consumer.

[Geoffrey Bastard @Geoffrey_RB]

Nitrogen, Wheat, Energy, Steel. Without sufficient domestic ability we have no resilience and there appears to be no sensible strategy to fix 🌾⚡️

[Clive Bailye @TWBFarms]

Britain has zero domestic nitrogen fertilizer production.

Our last plant closed years ago, with the situation around Iran & the Strait of Hormuz, where gas is crucial for fertilizer, this poses a huge food security risk, allowing this to happen is completely negligent, by this government and the previous. #FoodSecurity #UKFarming #EnergyCrisis @UKLabour @Conservatives @reformparty_uk @TheFarmingForum

[Joe Stanley @JoeWStanley]

“We are a rich country and can import our food”.

[National Farmers' Union @NFUtweets]

🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨

After months of NFU campaigning, the government has today announced changes to the threshold for inheritance tax for family farms. These changes mark a huge victory for British farmers.

NFU President Tom Bradshaw explains.

More 👉 https://t.co/K3uh4VEoUq

[Robbie Moore MP @_RobbieMoore]

I spoke up for farmers in Parliament yesterday. 

Labour Ministers sat there laughing - all whilst farmers watched on from the public gallery.

This is the level of disrespect our farmers have come to expect 👇

[Geoffrey Bastard @Geoffrey_RB]

A Government making another rod for Britains back

[Joe Rich @joerichlaw]

BREAKING: Rolls-Royce looking at moving its £1.6 trillion jet engine project and 40,000 of Britain’s top jobs to America or Germany - as FTSE 100 company complains Labour’s Net Zero policies are making its UK business unviable (via @DailyMail) https://t.co/A4O0zsozqx

[Rob Sluggett @Slug_95]

A man of integrity. He remembers the promises made pre election. This wont go away for Labour.

[Clive Bailye @TWBFarms]

“Family Farm tax” most certainly is not just about farmers

it also destroys Family business ☹️

The backbones of Britain are being broken by @UKLabour economics @RachelReevesMP

@agricontract @loosecollie @wheat_daddy @TheFarmingForum

https://t.co/ISMxzf8oaf

[Alan Smith @AlanJLSmith]

UK Innovation Is Bleeding To Death:

The House of Lords Science & Tech Committee just dropped a brutal 2025 report:

“We’re world-class at inventing… and world-class at losing it.”

- DeepMind? London-born. Google’s now.

- Arm? Cambridge chip genius. SoftBank owned.

- Graphcore? Bristol AI unicorn. Folded into SoftBank – 500+ UK jobs gone.

- Skyscanner? Edinburgh unicorn. £1.4B to Chinese Ctrip - control vanished.

- Hopin? £4B peak in London. Liquidated UK ops in 2024 to chase US scale.

This isn’t bad luck. It’s a system failure.

THE DOOM LOOP

1. UK invents

2. No capital

3. Forced to sell/move abroad

4. No jobs, tax, growth

5. Even less capital

Productivity is flat since 2008. Real wages stagnant. We’re trapped.

5 KILLER FINDINGS

- Pensions ghosted tech - UK funds invest <1% in growth ventures (US: ~8%). They’d rather buy US bonds than back British AI.

- Gov is siloed & slow - Innovate UK, BBB, NWF all separate. UAE deploys billions in a call. We play checkers while they play chess.

- We block talent - £1,500+ visa fees + 8-week waits. Top engineers go to Berlin/SF.

DeepMind thrived on immigrants - then Google poached the ecosystem.

- Regulators fear risk - Over-regulate at lab scale, wonder why no one scales.

RADICAL FIXES – ACT NOW

1. Pension Power-Up

Mandate 5% of UK pensions to growth equity by 2030 → £100BN+ patient capital.

2. British Scale-Up Command:
Merge Innovate UK + BBB + NWF into one agile agency:

• £10BN fund
• 90-day decisions
• Co-invest mandates

3. Golden Visa for Founders
• £0 fees
• 24-month scale-up visa
• Settlement at £10M revenue
Attract 1,000 global founders/year.

4. “Fail Fast” Regulation

24-month sandbox for all new tech. Regulators in startups. Fast-track winners. Learn from failures.

5. Celebrate Builders

• National Scale-Up Day
• Tax breaks on employee shares
• Founder in Residence @ No. 10

Culture eats strategy. Make building cool again.

We’re at a tipping point.

Lose another decade = more DeepMinds lost forever.

Act now = next unicorns stay British.

Read the full report: https://t.co/YZzqmVhM6k

Tag your MP. Share this.

@Barney_H_Y @alexfmac @DanielPriestley @HarryStebbings

[Harriet Cross MP @HarrietCross_MP]

UK - 0 new wells this year.
Norway - 30 AND COUNTING.

In the same North Sea.

The difference?

The Labour Government. https://t.co/aTVi4DrUEh

[Geoffrey Bastard @Geoffrey_RB]

Cornwall leading the way 🫒

[Aris Roussinos @arisroussinos]

I missed this when published, but Cornwall’s become the first part of the UK to produce olive oil

[FMC Agro UK @FMCAgroUK]

With applications of our new autumn herbicide Fundatis®, powered by Isoflex® active well underway over the last couple of weeks, it’s great to see the product performing really well. 😀

These pictures 📸 were taken on farm near Shrewsbury last week in winter wheat. The fields received an application of Fundatis at 1.0L/ha + Flufenacet and DFF at 0.6L/ha at the pre-emergence timing. 🚜 🌱

You can really see the striking pink colour which can sometimes be seen on susceptible grassweeds and in this case, ryegrass. 🚜

#winterwheat #winterbarley #agronomy #farming #FMC #fundatisherbicide

[Exeter Chiefs @ExeterChiefs]

A TOP DRAWER PERFORMANCE from the Chiefs! And from YOU in the stands! 🫵

What an occasion at The Park, #ChiefsFamily! 🔥

#EXEvHAR | #JointheJourney

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

I have no words. I don't understand how to live in a world where someone would take a father away from his young children for having a different opinion.

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

The Budget inheritance tax changes raised £500m/year, but hit small/businesses unfairly. And also allowed much IHT avoidance to continue

A new proposal does the impossible: protects small farms/businesses, hits avoidance, AND raises twice as much revenue.

How?

🧵:

[Jeremy Clarkson @JeremyClarkson]

It looks like this year’s harvest will be catastrophic. That should be a worry for anyone who eats food. If a disaster on this scale had befallen any other industry, there would be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.