Richard Tucker

Just a simple dairy farmer with an over active imagination!

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

In 1946 the British government introduced free school milk for every child in the country. One third of a pint, every school day, from the age of five to the age of fifteen.

The milk was whole. Full-fat. From British dairy herds. It was delivered to the school gate in small glass bottles with foil caps and left on the doorstep in metal crates, where it sat in the sun until morning break if the weather was warm and developed a slightly suspect taste that an entire generation of British adults can still describe with uncomfortable precision.

The generation that grew up on school milk was, by every anthropometric measure, the healthiest generation of British children ever recorded.

Average height increased. Bone density improved. Dental health, despite the sugar in everything else, improved. Iron deficiency rates among school-age children dropped. The growth charts that the Ministry of Health had been keeping since the war showed a consistent, measurable, year-on-year improvement that tracked precisely onto the introduction of the milk programme.

In 1971 Margaret Thatcher, then Education Secretary, cut free school milk for children over seven. The tabloids called her Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. She was vilified. She kept the policy.

The next generation of British children, the ones who grew up without the daily third of a pint, were measurably less healthy than the one before.

The growth charts show it. The dental records show it. The conscription medicals, while they lasted, showed it. The thing the milk had been providing, the calcium, the vitamin D, the vitamin A, the complete amino acid profile, the conjugated linoleic acid, the fat-soluble nutrients that a growing skeleton requires in order to reach its genetic potential, was no longer arriving at morning break in a glass bottle with a foil cap.

It was replaced, eventually, by nothing. Or by a carton of fruit juice. Or by a packet of crisps from the vending machine that appeared in the school corridor in the 1990s.

The generation that drank the milk is now in its seventies and eighties. They are, on average, taller, stronger-boned, and longer-lived than the generation that came after them.

The milk was not magic.

The milk was milk.

It was the thing the body needed, delivered at the time the body needed it, at a cost the government considered acceptable until it didn't.

The cost of not providing it has been rather higher.

[Risteárd Cooper @RisteardCooper]

6N Ref Watch with Nigel Owens

‘Out Of His Head’ is Risteárd Cooper’s new solo comedy show drop kicking off this February 28th and in venues nationwide across March 2026.

Tickets on sale now 🏉🎤 from link in bio!

#sixnations #sixnationsrugby #6nations #risteárdcooper #comedy

[More Perfect Union @MorePerfectUS]

John Deere got this video taken off our YouTube channel for two weeks. It took our lawyers reaching out to YouTube to get it back up.

The video lays out how a handful of corporations took control of the entire agriculture industry, bankrupting farmers and screwing over America.

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

@cvfarming Not yet! 🤔

[Football Tweet ⚽ @Footballtweet]

When one Inter fan watched the game with 5 of his mates, who are all Barcelona fans. 😂

This video is INCREDIBLE. 😂 https://t.co/ZySnwVvzIr

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

@Graiseconsult1 So it's your advice that is currently flooding the UK with milk then!?!😜

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

@RodneyDown @emilysheffield 'Net zero' is in the same category as 'perpetual motion' , nice idea, but practically impossible!

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

@RodneyDown @No1FarmerJake The dust damp now!?!

[Rugby on TNT Sports @rugbyontnt]

Have the Waratahs just delivered the try of the year in April?! 😲

[rodney down @RodneyDown]

As always Retweets most appreciated. We are hiring for one of our dairies.

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

@RachelGilmourLD @DefraGovUK Didn't see your name on the list of attendees at the Westminster Hall Debate relating to IHT relief for working farmers @RachelGilmourLD ,I hope this was an administrative error!🤔

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

@TRGScott @JoeWStanley @RachelReevesMP @SteveReedMP @Keir_Starmer Welcome to farming in Devon, this size farm is far from uncommon here!

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

@HefinR @PaulWoldfarm 👍 would 2.7m cows replace 46m sheep feed wise🧐

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

🧐

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

Back in June, a fortnight before the government’s landslide election victory, I warned in my weekly "Economics Agenda" column in the @Telegraph that "ghosts of the 1970s haunt Labour’s economic resurrection”.

Would-be Chancellor @RachelReevesMP claimed ahead of the election that her party could significantly increase government spending “without raising taxes on working people”.

Labour’s “pro-growth” policies would deliver the economic expansion needed to allow the government to take on more debt to fund lots of extra spending, we were told.

The Tories had, of course, already pushed the UK’s tax burden to 100pc of GDP – a 60-year high.

But the argument seemed to be that Reeves could jack up government borrowing even more because she “used to work at the Bank of England” and her name wasn’t Liz Truss @trussliz

Here's my column from six months ago

🧵 1/5

https://t.co/IYWmWc3QML

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

@cvfarming @tristiandavie @Slug_95 Note milk price volatility over the last few years🎢

[Graise Consultancy/Andre🌱🌿 @Graiseconsult1]

Excellent thread on the Jena experiment looking at plant diversity in pasture👍

[Richard Tucker @RJTFarming]

@RodneyDown @No1FarmerJake @richardpayne94 @JolyonMaugham

[Lee Harris @LeeHarris]

Goodness me. Do not mess with UK Farmers.

They are properly tooled up 😂