Donald Hunter

Director at Donald Hunter Architects, Ex Cumnock Rugby player, clay pigeon shooter, very occasional tractor driver.

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

The BBC has had thirty eight years and £3.8 billion a year to explain British farming to the British public. The job was eventually done by an American shopping website, in eight episodes, fronted by the man the BBC itself dropped over a row about a steak.

Countryfile first went out on 24 July 1988, and its origin is the part nobody brings up. It replaced Farming, a programme that had spent thirty years making news for the people who actually did the work. The new show was deliberately widened to take in everybody who merely liked the countryside as well as those who lived off it. Widened meant softened. In 2009 it moved to Sunday evenings, where five to six million people still watch, and it has been settled ever since into an hour of scenery, a ramble, a calendar competition and the weather.

Then in June 2021 a company best known for selling doorbells put out a series about a man failing to farm a thousand acres, and within a week the British public understood the subsidy system.

Look at what an American retailer put on screen that thirty eight years of Sunday nights had not. A thousand acres, a full year of work, £144 profit. A crop drowning in the field with nobody coming to help. A farmer selling at a price he is not allowed to set. A council able to shut a restaurant standing on a man's own land. The accounts, open, with jokes over the top.

James Rebanks, who keeps sheep for a living rather than for a segment, reckoned Clarkson did more for farmers in one series than Countryfile had managed in thirty years. The NFU said the same thing in nicer words.

Now the funding, which is where it gets genuinely funny.

Countryfile is paid for by £180 a year, rising on 1 April, taken from every household in Britain that watches live television, on pain of prosecution. Twenty three million licences. Three point eight billion pounds. Guaranteed money, a captive audience, a national mandate and a prime Sunday slot.

Clarkson's Farm is paid for by people voluntarily pressing play, and it goes out in more than 240 countries.

The nation's farmers had one broadcaster legally funded by them, obliged to serve them, sitting on the biggest slot in British television. It gave them a weather forecast and a photography competition, and when a bloke with a Lamborghini tractor did the actual job for free, the same building's stars went on a sofa to complain about his opening credits.

The BBC had the money, the mandate, the Sunday night and thirty eight years.

It used them to film the view.

[James Freeman @james_freeman__]

"Rishi Sunak lied in the election debate last night, Labour will not be raising taxes on working people"

Labour lied to get elected and have lied about everything since. Even the line about a black hole aa a reason for tax rises has now been exposed by the OBR!

Labour out!

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

“I have a brilliant plan for GB Energy. We are surrounded by natural energy resources, but let’s ignore that and buy £40 billion of oil and gas from Norway, which comes from the same sea that we share with them. Let’s spend £11.6 billion on overseas climate aid. Let’s pay wind power companies millions of pounds to turn the wind turbines off. Let’s spaff away £30bn on carbon capture machines. Let’s ban gas boilers and put in heat pumps. Let’s end new coal mining licenses and spend millions of pounds for foreign coal to keep Britain's last steel plant running. Let’s plaster solar panels on farmland, but also spend £50 million on sun dimming experiments. We will do this in a country that has the fifth least annual sunlight hours. And we will end up with the most expensive industrial electricity prices in the developed world.“

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

“The biggest lie in the world right now is that cows are killing the planet. At the core of that lie is how methane is calculated.”

~ farmer Andrew Wright.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

If Keir Starmer had said before the election that he would remove the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners, add inheritance to family farms, council tax & energy price increases, raise university tuition fees, plaster mass-scale solar panels on thousands of acres of prime farmland despite huge local community objections, spaff £22bn of taxpayers’ money on carbon capture machines, give £3bn a year of taxpayers’ money to Ukraine, pledge a 20% cut in meat & dairy and get exposed for receiving over £100,000 worth of freebies - he almost certainly wouldn’t have won. He duped the electorate. An utterly shameless display of snake oil political salesmanship. And still he lectures all of us in that gratingly sanctimonious manner of his like we are all somehow the problem here.

[Donald Hunter @DonnieHunter]

@JeremyClarkson Heathrow and Manchester for me. Both brutal!

[Donald Hunter @DonnieHunter]

@BambooSaviour @MacmillanArc I was also not aware they were included in the ban as they are always considered a secondary heat source. Another cracking example of policy being introduced with absolutely no consideration on impact. People will install them following completion regardless.

[South Ayrshire Council @southayrshire]

Our Building Standards team have now assessed the drone footage of the former Ayr Station Hotel. The fire has extensively damaged the southern section of the building, as you can see in the video below.

Full update here https://t.co/Xn3IR1212p

[Argyll and Bute Council @argyllandbute]

Celebrating and recognising exceptional design – congratulations to the 2023 Argyll and Bute Design Award winners.

A full list of winners is available on our website
https://t.co/BVng7Zi65g
#abplace2b #planning #design #sustainabledevelopment

[Greatest Hits Radio @greatesthitsuk]

The nation stopped for the return of PopMaster - and full marks on day one! Listen weekdays at 10:30 and catch-up anytime on our app. @RealKenBruce

[Led By Donkeys @ByDonkeys]

🚨MPs FOR HIRE: a Led By Donkeys undercover investigation🚨

Watch the trailer…

[Rupert Hawksley @ruhawksley]

Every word of this by @gregjames is a joy – read read read! https://t.co/XxO6BpKcfH

[Donald Hunter @DonnieHunter]

What a tackle! #SCOvFIJ

[Donald Hunter @DonnieHunter]

Nice platform off a strong scrum. #SCOvFIJ

[Donald Hunter @DonnieHunter]

Scotland need to stop the basic penalties. #SCOvFIJ

[Donald Hunter @DonnieHunter]

Fiji are such an exciting team to watch when they have the ball in hand. Unfortunate that it’s when they are playing against Scotland… #AutumnNationsSeries

[Howard Beckett @HowardRBeckett]

Wholesale gas is 62% cheaper than August 26.

Retail gas is £500 more expensive than August 26.

We are being ripped off.

[Mark Peacock @MarkPea95594562]

Advice for anyone standing in a 12 hour queue today.
@greghemphill96