One of the factors included in the ‘Quality of Life’ index, which reached this conclusion, is low crime levels. For this Chief Constable Giles York, and his team must be congratulated.
More than three-quarters of West Sussex residents rate their ‘happiness’ as high. Ote Hall Farms straddle both East and West Sussex and we all rate our ‘happiness’ as extremely high!
The Agriculture Bill published last week was low on details. Apparently there is more to come to flesh out the bones. I certainly hope so.
So far it looks like Mr Gove has not listened to anything the farming industry had to say. What was the point of bothering to respond to the questionnaire when clearly the Minister has ignored it all.
The NFU is supposed to represent the farming industry, and convey to the Government of the day what is required to ensure we have a thriving and ‘workable’ industry. The Minister has clearly chosen not take on board what the NFU President has said on her countless visits to DEFRA.
Mr Gove has quite obviously been ambushed by the all-powerful, and heavily subsidised, environmental lobby groups.
It is abundantly clear the future of farming in the UK will continue to be driven by Government subsidies encouraging us to all become park keepers. The Agriculture Bill is about public access, public good and protecting the environment. Nothing about food production.
Why do these people not understand that the more the public access the countryside the negative impact upon food production and flora and fauna is catastrophic. It is not rocket science, it is pure and simple fact.
At a time when Brexit is looming and we have this huge opportunity to increase production, and open up trade and markets, it seems bizarre to discourage food production, cut funding for research and development and give little support for animal welfare.
It is important that farmers can farm without the need for support, but it is clearly difficult for those earning a living on the margins. This includes hill farmers, tenant farmers and some small isolated family farms which are unable to diversify.
Now is the time to raise the importance of food production, and ensure farmers receive a fair price for their products, enabling future investment and make it possible to plan for years to come.
What appears to be lost in translation, is that as soon as farmers accept payments, however well they are dressed up, they are agreeing to allow someone else to dictate how the farm is run and managed. This is a blatant form of land nationalisation by the back door; it is not acceptable.
An increasing number of women are leaping onto the feminist’s bandwagon demanding equality. I believe they need to decide if they truly want equal opportunities with the opposite sex, or unequal opportunities. In fact what some seem to aspire to with their very aggressive ‘poor me’ attitude, is male domination.
Does it need to be pointed out that men and women are different? Both sexes have qualities the other will never aspire to, and nor should they. Those with exceptional qualities will always rise to the top, whatever their gender. But what cannot happen is that men or women get a proverbial ‘leg up’, when their abilities are less than exceptional, just because of their gender.
Certain women have given ‘feminism’ a bad name. And organisations such as the BBC have made things worse by over promoting mediocre women to positions they are clearly not up to.
It is also increasingly certain that any right minded employer would avoid taking on female staff at all costs, and who can blame them.