As beef farmers we take pride in producing top quality ‘Ote Hall Grass Fed Sussex Beef’. We source our cattle locally at 9-12 months, they spend the following 12 to 18 months grazing extensively during the summer, then during the cold, wet winter they are housed on deep straw, and fed home grown meadow hay. This age-old traditional system does not pollute the air or water courses.
 
When I read that Edinburgh has become the second place in the UK to adopt the ‘plant-based treaty’ – including a pledge to promote vegan food over animal products by axing meat from menus in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes, the first being Haywards Heath, I am not only disappointed but mystified. Why would the city of Edinburgh or Haywards Heath Town Council, promote veganism?
 
There are many reasons why this is a bad idea. Did they consult their communities? Did they consider the harm vegan diets can do to growing bodies which need a balanced natural diet to develop healthily? What about the sick and elderly who require well balanced nutritional food to gain strength?
 
I would question the right of any authority to deprive those most vulnerable in our society, including children, the sick and elderly, of a healthy, balanced diet. Humans are omnivores, we are designed to eat plants, including fruit and vegetables, and animals, cooked as meat or used for products like milk or eggs.
 
When our ancestors introduced calorie-dense meat and marrow into their diet instead of just low-quality plants, the extra energy helped to fuel bigger brains. If they had remained herbivores, it is possible we would still be living in the trees. By peddling veganism, future generations could end up back there again.  
 
Funerals and Services of Thanksgiving although sad occasions, can, depending on who conducts them, become joyous and deeply moving as we remember lives well lived.
 
I recently attended a service beautifully planned by the family and conducted by a remarkable elderly vicar. He was able to bring to the congregation’s mind eye the vision of a greatly loved mother and grandmother, who had departed a life filled with laughter, love, family, and friendship, and moved on to pastures new.
 
Among her many talents, she loved to paint; she had a remarkable gift. On the back of the order of service was one of her works; a painting of the village church where we sat. The Revd. John King, during his brief but perfectly executed touching address, was able to paint for her family and friends, a gloriously comforting picture of her heaven, a place full of light and tranquility. A place so perfect and beautiful to pick up her brushes and easel and carry on with what gave her so much pleasure and peace.
 
The short but perfectly planned service was spot on. I believe everyone, although sad, left with a spring in our step, happy memories, and lighter hearts.

​Will we be made to change our vocabulary driven by the madness emerging from the USA? A department of the University of Southern California is suggesting that the word ‘field’, should no longer be used as it could cause offence, ‘due to its supposed racist connotations of slavery’.
 
I did wonder if it was already April Fool’s Day, but no, it turns out to be yet another US absurdity. I am beginning to wonder if there is something in the air on the West Coast which causes paranoia and an obsession with persecution. According to US California University bosses, ‘field’ should be replaced with the ‘original’ Latin word ‘practicum’.
 
Last week it was reported that ‘Boris had a ‘field day’ when making an impromptu visit to the Island Farm Donkey Sanctuary in Oxfordshire.’ In US speak, Boris had a ‘practicum day’. Why would anyone consider replacing a word used for centuries, and who on earth can be offended by a field?  You really cannot make this stuff up.
 
Do farmers, landowners, sports men and women, those working in the ‘field’ of medicine, physics, and other fields, need to start preparing for such nonsense arriving in the UK? Should we no longer refer to: sports fields, hay fields, field trials, the ‘field’ of race horses, and many other uses of this word?
 
Should towns and cities be re-named in case they cause offense? Perhaps Sheffield, Wakefield, Mirfield, Broomfield, and more locally, Heathfield, Petersfield or Uckfield, start thinking up new names?
 
But let us be positive and assume such stupidity will not cross ‘the pond’. California does appear to produce increasingly bizarre and troubled individuals and organisations. I have faith in the British when it comes to common sense, free speech, democracy, and decency. Perhaps we could export a little of that along with our beef. 
 
There is more good news for British trawlers who will be able to catch a quarter more fish than when the UK was in the European Union. Fisheries minister Mark Spencer said they could net more than 140,000 tons – 30,000 tons up on Brussels quota – an increase worth £34million.
 
He said, “These negotiations are a crucial route for the UK to protect our fish stocks, safeguard the marine environment and, in turn, ensure that the fishing industry can profit and thrive.”

Under the post-Brexit trade treaty, 25 per cent of the EU’s fishing rights in UK waters are being progressively transferred back to British fleets between 2021 and 2026. More Cod and other species can be caught by UK trawlers in the North Sea, Irish Sea and off the coast of Scotland.
​
Mr Spencer told the Commons last week: “As an independent coastal state, we have taken back control of our waters, we have the freedom to negotiate on our terms and push for deals that will deliver for all parts of the UK fishing industry. These deals have secured more than £750 million-worth of fishing opportunities for the fleet in 2023.

​A majority voted for Brexit in 2016 but it took Boris replacing Mrs May, and until January 2020 to get ‘Brexit Done’. Now in 2023 it is time to complete the process by tearing up EU laws, ensuring there is no possibility that the historic democratic decision of millions of Britons can be reversed.
 
There are very legitimate concerns that Remainers are already preparing the ground to ambush the Retained EU Law Bill which allows for EU law to be modified or replaced. This and the changes within the Financial Services and Markets Bill, affecting the city, are vital to restore the UK’s independence, prosperity, and sovereignty.
 
Barnabas Reynolds, author of Restoring UK Law, said, “EU laws and method are prescriptive and controlling, and evidence shows, constitutes a drag on growth. Our legal system is clear, operationally apolitical, and much admired worldwide – giving rise to greater legal certainty than that achieved through EU law. Legal certainty is the lifeblood of our much-prized individual and commercial freedoms.”
 
The task of revision is said to be subtle and complex, involving considerable intellectual effort. It should be a priority for government to take independent advice on what laws to keep, and how they should be redrafted to match our ‘common law’. However, Whitehall departments, regulators and other bodies involved in managing the system whilst the UK was inside the EU, will be reluctant, unwilling, or unable to change direction and identify what needs to change.
 
Restoring our legal approach is the constitutional consequence of leaving the EU. Remainers will stall if possible, making only minor changes so that any steps taken are reversible, leaving the door open for a future government to readopt EU law.
 
Sovereignty over our laws, and the ability to fashion them for our own approach and interests, is at the heart of Brexit. As Mr. Reynolds makes clear, a failure to appreciate this allowed Theresa May to negotiate away sovereignty over our laws in return for trade. One result is the mess of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
 
Law and our legal method must be placed back at the heart of our system. It will require extensive work by “imaginative lawyers supported by skilled common law drafting, which must start right away, in order to be effective.”
 
It took 15 rounds of voting before Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker of the House of Representative in the US Senate, but at what cost? President Putin must be ecstatic as one of the many concessions McCarthy made was to agree to limit any future aid to Ukraine. Former President Trump will no doubt have influenced this outcome.
 
Most of us believe in ‘free speech’ but should not a line be drawn when airing one’s ‘supposed’ dirty linen in public, and purposely putting former trusted friends, colleagues, and one’s immediate family in danger of being targeted by some of the most ruthless and uncivilized savages on God’s earth?

Another year has slipped by - they do so with increasing frequency.
 
As we step into 2023 we face multiple challenges, here in the UK and around the world. It is impossible to pick a single continent, other than Antarctica, which is not facing conflict and turmoil, either man made aggression, or Mother Nature venting her fury in one form or another.
 
As we look around, we see chaos being dripped like poison disrupting our lives by those who wish to see Great Britain fall into the hands of Bolsheviks. It is up to the decent often silent majority, to demonstrate their determination to stand up for tolerance and democracy, as the hard-working backbone of our society.
 
It is that majority who turned out to mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth. It is those who continue to play their part in ensuring the well-oiled wheels of the country continue to turn, working for the NHS, the transport network, border force, civil servants, teachers, and many others while watching their colleagues withdrawing their labour. Thus, making life challenging for millions of hard-working individuals desperate to get to work, attend medical appointments, get to school, or go on holiday.   
 
Surely it is time for the whole country to get back to work, get behind the government, and industry of all guises, to pull us out of the quagmire left in the wake of the pandemic, not helped by the war in Ukraine.
 
In January 2020, the UK was on the crest of a wave. There was an air of optimism as Brexit was done, Boris had an 80-seat majority, and the UK was the fastest growing economy amongst G7 countries. And then COVID happened followed by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
 
Now at the start of 2023, we have union leaders determined to cripple the economy, and train drivers on £75,000 prepared to ‘walkout’. 
 
We have a chancellor clearly wanting to see Brexit fail, who talks down the UK at every opportunity with his doom and gloom, and plans to tax us all ‘until the pips squeak’
 
We cannot change Prime Ministers, but Rishi Sunak surely recognizes this Eeyore of a chancellor will drag him and the country down into the depths of despair well before the next General election.
 
We need a remarkable leader, someone outstanding and charismatic. Someone who can communicate – sadly, there is no sign of that from this PM.
 
We are all keen to ‘save the planet’, but as motorists queued for hours to charge their cars, it is clear going all electric is not the solution. The country obviously requires a reliable supply of primary energy and millions more charging points. But considering the plan is to power transport, heating, lighting, engineering, manufacturing, and farming by batteries and electricity, there is a long, long way to go.