Jeremy Clarkson: Farming this year was 'an absolute disaster'

Jeremy Clarkson has said it had been a "terrible" year for farming due to the hot weather, at a surprise appearance at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.

The former Top Gear presenter and star of Clarkson's Farm also said farmers were being "attacked" from every angle by rising costs, but he was optimistic about the future.

He was greeted by loud applause from the Tory faithful, but joked that "a lot of people have come dressed as seats, I notice, around the edges there".

In a question and answer session alongside land agent Charlie Ireland, he also criticised the economic conditions faced by business owners, asking: "Why would anybody set up a business in this country right now?"

Clarkson - who also hosts ITV's Who Wants to be a Millionaire - was introduced to the stage by the Conservative shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins.

Asked what kind of year he had had on the farm, Clarkson said: "We worked really hard all year and we ended up with, I think I'm right in saying, three ounces of hen food.

"It was an absolute disaster on the farming side but, I mean, luckily we've got other projects going on now.

"But the farming is very, very difficult – very, very difficult at the moment."

He added: "I'm very fortunate that I do have other income streams and newspaper columns, but if you're an ordinary farmer, it's not just the weather.

"Remember, it's as Charlie was saying, the attacks come from everywhere – whether it's Iran or Ukraine or taxes or energy costs – whatever it might be, it's just relentless."

The TV presenter has long been a Conservative supporter and was involved in the campaign against the Labour government's inheritance tax plans for farmers.

Former chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the government would levy inheritance tax on family farms in the party's first budget.

But the plan was watered down last year following the farmers' campaign and pressure from some of Labour's rural MPs.

Clarkson joked about comments by Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter who said the Britain of country pubs and black Labradors was a "nostalgic" false memory.

He joked that he was a "socialist" because he drinks lager and has two fox red Labradors, after it was reported Riddell-Carpenter told a Labour conference fringe event she feared the far right deciding what the vision of rural areas is.

Riddell-Carpenter had said: "It'll be that warm ale, a black Labrador by your feet in a pub that doesn't exist, and with symbolism of fox hunting all around them. It'll be a very far-right nostalgic vision of Britain that we don't want to have, (that) never really existed."

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.