YESTERDAY’S inheritance tax protest by farmers was led by a multi-millionaire who has spent the last two decades pissing off everyone he can.
Jeremy Clarkson, who invested in his 440-hectare farm to avoid paying tax on his vast wealth, now claims he bought it because he wanted to shoot pheasants and honestly thinks that is better.
Clarkson said: “Not all farmers are incredibly rich, furious that Labour have been elected, and protesting the loss of their special tax-avoidance privileges. However, I am.
“And in my wisdom, which observers of my life so far will agree is my key quality, I have decided to act as their representative. Because nobody has any pre-existing prejudices about me and therefore they’ll get a fair hearing.
“There are farmers here concerned they will lose land that has been in their family for generations. I’m nothing like them, so I thought it best I hog the publicity and become the face of their cause. After all I have discovered farming, late in life, as a dilettante pursuit of the essentially retired. Sort of like Marie Antoinette.
“In case that’s not enough, Baron Lloyd-Webber is here. As is the Duchess of Rutland who lives in Belvoir Castle.”
Londoner Nathan Muir said: “Why, I haven’t encountered a movement this sympathetic since moaning 1970s rock stars protested tax by moving to the French Riviera.”
