🇬🇧Cornish Expat. Agriculture🌾 Head of Marketing & Plant Health UK & IE at FMC. Amateur Oenologue. CrossFit. Views my Own.
Shropshire
Joined September 2011
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Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
Cumulative new taxes, levies, and regulatory compliance costs have added roughly £76,000 to the cost of building a new home since 2020.
Let’s say you use this scheme to buy a 350k new build house:
£76,000 to the government straight away.
£319,000 in interest to the bank (at 6%)
Assuming 33% tax rate, you’d have to earn almost a million pounds to pay off the house. A third to the government, a third to the bank, a third to pay off the house.
…and if property prices fall a mere 2.5%, you’re wiped out.
Only a fool or a madman would accept such a deal.
🧐 Daily reminder that the UK imports 48% of its food & Farmers here are being constantly De-Incentivised to do anything about it…
War may be coming. Are we psychologically ready? bbc.in/4yHhKUD
Not a Luddite, but Farming used to be a much more sociable (and arguably profitable) endeavour 🌾 #Harvest2026
Taxes could be doubled or tripled but will just fall further into a financial black hole until there is a complete overhaul of how it is allocated & spent 🤯🤯
Andy Burnham is probably going to raise tax by at least £4.7bn, and maybe much more.
Here's my list of 37 ways he might do it: every potential tax rise, how much it would raise, and what the downside would be. There's always a downside.
Thread:
ALT A chart showing every UK tax. By far the biggest ones are: - Income tax - National insurance - VAT - Corporation tax
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
How many family farms survive this?
And if they don’t, does the UK countryside change forever?
apple.news/A8J6r0JHrRMev7iEK…
#Farming #Agriculture #FoodSecurity #Farmers #BritishFarming #FoodPrices #CostOfLiving #Wheat #Fertiliser #Diesel #RuralBritain #FoodProduction #UKFarming @Telegraph @CAAV_UK
🌾Smallest 🌧️ shower last night & forecast disappeared for next weekend but @ragtseedsuk Laureate S Barley growing well. Drilled 18/04 @FMCAgroUK #Harvest26
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
75% of Brits want North Sea oil & gas.
That’s not a fringe view, it’s the majority.
Energy policy should reflect reality, not ideology.
Go all in on the North Sea.
Back nuclear.
Secure Britain’s future.
The renewables debate is over.
🤯 Who is so poorly creating the ROI plans/budgets on these projects?! HS2 included. UK will soon bankrupt itself with its general levels of wastage/inefficiency. Is there a single Maths GCSE amongst them? #Economics
Stonehenge tunnel officially scrapped - after more than £179,000,000 spent on plan lbc.co.uk/article/stonehenge…
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
We used to produce fertiliser in Britain.
The last major site producing Ammonia closed in 2022 due to high energy prices. Nobody cared. Fertiliser doesn’t excite politicians.
Just one example of an industrial output sacrificed to Net Zero. All costs passed onto the consumer.
Nitrogen, Wheat, Energy, Steel. Without sufficient domestic ability we have no resilience and there appears to be no sensible strategy to fix 🌾⚡️
Britain has zero domestic nitrogen fertilizer production.
Our last plant closed years ago, with the situation around Iran & the Strait of Hormuz, where gas is crucial for fertilizer, this poses a huge food security risk, allowing this to happen is completely negligent, by this government and the previous. #FoodSecurity #UKFarming #EnergyCrisis @UKLabour @Conservatives @reformparty_uk @TheFarmingForum
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
“We are a rich country and can import our food”.
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨
After months of NFU campaigning, the government has today announced changes to the threshold for inheritance tax for family farms. These changes mark a huge victory for British farmers.
NFU President Tom Bradshaw explains.
More 👉 ow.ly/TSFG50XNBE7
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
I spoke up for farmers in Parliament yesterday.
Labour Ministers sat there laughing - all whilst farmers watched on from the public gallery.
This is the level of disrespect our farmers have come to expect 👇
A Government making another rod for Britains back
BREAKING: Rolls-Royce looking at moving its £1.6 trillion jet engine project and 40,000 of Britain’s top jobs to America or Germany - as FTSE 100 company complains Labour’s Net Zero policies are making its UK business unviable (via @DailyMail) thisismoney.co.uk/money/mark…
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
A man of integrity. He remembers the promises made pre election. This wont go away for Labour.
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
“Family Farm tax” most certainly is not just about farmers
it also destroys Family business ☹️
The backbones of Britain are being broken by @UKLabour economics @RachelReevesMP
@agricontract @loosecollie @wheat_daddy @TheFarmingForum
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2y…
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
UK Innovation Is Bleeding To Death:
The House of Lords Science & Tech Committee just dropped a brutal 2025 report:
“We’re world-class at inventing… and world-class at losing it.”
- DeepMind? London-born. Google’s now.
- Arm? Cambridge chip genius. SoftBank owned.
- Graphcore? Bristol AI unicorn. Folded into SoftBank – 500+ UK jobs gone.
- Skyscanner? Edinburgh unicorn. £1.4B to Chinese Ctrip - control vanished.
- Hopin? £4B peak in London. Liquidated UK ops in 2024 to chase US scale.
This isn’t bad luck. It’s a system failure.
THE DOOM LOOP
1. UK invents
2. No capital
3. Forced to sell/move abroad
4. No jobs, tax, growth
5. Even less capital
Productivity is flat since 2008. Real wages stagnant. We’re trapped.
5 KILLER FINDINGS
- Pensions ghosted tech - UK funds invest <1% in growth ventures (US: ~8%). They’d rather buy US bonds than back British AI.
- Gov is siloed & slow - Innovate UK, BBB, NWF all separate. UAE deploys billions in a call. We play checkers while they play chess.
- We block talent - £1,500+ visa fees + 8-week waits. Top engineers go to Berlin/SF.
DeepMind thrived on immigrants - then Google poached the ecosystem.
- Regulators fear risk - Over-regulate at lab scale, wonder why no one scales.
RADICAL FIXES – ACT NOW
1. Pension Power-Up
Mandate 5% of UK pensions to growth equity by 2030 → £100BN+ patient capital.
2. British Scale-Up Command:
Merge Innovate UK + BBB + NWF into one agile agency:
• £10BN fund
• 90-day decisions
• Co-invest mandates
3. Golden Visa for Founders
• £0 fees
• 24-month scale-up visa
• Settlement at £10M revenue
Attract 1,000 global founders/year.
4. “Fail Fast” Regulation
24-month sandbox for all new tech. Regulators in startups. Fast-track winners. Learn from failures.
5. Celebrate Builders
• National Scale-Up Day
• Tax breaks on employee shares
• Founder in Residence @ No. 10
Culture eats strategy. Make building cool again.
We’re at a tipping point.
Lose another decade = more DeepMinds lost forever.
Act now = next unicorns stay British.
Read the full report: publications.parliament.uk/p…
Tag your MP. Share this.
@Barney_H_Y @alexfmac @DanielPriestley @HarryStebbings
Geoffrey Bastard retweeted
UK - 0 new wells this year.
Norway - 30 AND COUNTING.
In the same North Sea.
The difference?
The Labour Government. telegraph.co.uk/business/202…
