Jeremy Clarkson has burned an effigy of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in place of Guy Fawkes during a Bonfire Night scene in the new season of his Amazon Prime show, Clarkson's Farm. The stunt comes in response to Labour's proposed 20 per cent inheritance tax on farms worth over £1 million, which Clarkson previously said could be 'the end' for farmers.
In the episode, which premieres on 3 June, Clarkson tells farm hand Kaleb Cooper that 'you can put anything you don't like' on a bonfire, before dressing an effigy as Starmer and placing it at the top. The scene was filmed days after Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her October 2024 Budget. Clarkson narrates: 'Given the strength of feelings around here post-Budget, it felt good to make fun of the government. But all of us knew that to try and stop this astonishing attack on British farming, fun wouldn't cut it – and that soon, we'd have to get serious.'
Weeks later, Clarkson joined an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 protesters in London urging the government to reconsider the tax. Speaking to The Times, he highlighted hidden rural poverty, noting that his show does not depict it because his own farm, Diddly Squat, is not impoverished. 'But trust me, there is absolute poverty,' he said. 'I’m surrounded by farmers. It’s people with 200 acres, 400 acres. Way past Rachel Reeves’s threshold. They are f***ed.'
Clarkson cited the example of Harriet Cowan, a temporary farm manager, who works on her father's farm four days a week and as a nurse three days a week because there is 'no money to pay her' to inherit the farm. He also revealed that Starmer has been banned from his Cotswolds pub, The Farmer's Dog, making him 'the first person to be banned'. Clarkson said the prime minister 'hasn't done much to endear himself to me yet'.
