DAN HODGES: Jeremy Clarkson’s cynical purpose for purchasing his farm exhibits why celebrities ought to keep out of politics

Jeremy Clarkson is on the march. Or on the drive. Britain’s most famous petrolhead and owner of Diddly Squat farm has been attempting to organise a coach to transport himself and his friends to London for the big protest scheduled for next Tuesday.

The stated aim of the gathering is to overturn Rachel Reeves‘s inheritance tax changes, which many farmers feel will destroy their livelihoods. 

Although Clarkson thinks her aim is even more nefarious. ‘I’m becoming more and more convinced that Starmer and Reeves have a sinister plan,’ he wrote. 

Jeremy Clarkson has turned into an overnight anti-hero for the Government’s opponents

‘They want to carpet-bomb our farmland with new towns for immigrants and net-zero windfarms. But before they can do that, they have to ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers.’

Such typically incendiary comments have turned Clarkson into an overnight anti-hero for the Government’s opponents. To the extent that one pollster, James Kanagasooriam, who first came up with the term The Red Wall, has stated his intervention could presage ‘Britain’s Trump moment’.

‘He has reach, a massive TV show, is part of the nation’s mental furniture. He has become the countryside’s most effective representative in decades. He’s far more heterodox than his opponents suggest. And he winds up all the right people,’ he claimed.

Maybe. But it’s now just over a week since we had the actual Trump Moment. And one of the reasons he’s returning triumphantly to the White House is – in part – because of interventions from people like Jeremy Clarkson.

I’ve just got back from a few days in the States. And as the post-mortem into Kamala Harris‘s calamitous defeat continues, a number of Democratic analysts were starting to point the finger at the army of celebrity endorsers who had taken to the airwaves and social media to beg and berate their followers into rallying to her cause.

‘Somehow we think if Beyoncé is on stage, that will solve all our problems,’ one Democratic strategist lamented. ‘What people don’t realise is that it actually makes it worse. It reinforces this perception that we are the party of elites, that we don’t understand what working class folks are going through.’

Jeremy Clarkson’s supporters insist his planned appearance on the protest stage at Westminster next week will be markedly different. For one, they claim he is not simply showboating on the issue, but as a working farmer has actual ‘skin in the game’ and will be directly impacted by Reeves’s policy.

But as he himself acknowledged when he declined to become official leader of the anti-inheritance tax hike campaign. ‘I’m not a family farmer, and those who support Starmer will point this out. Which means that any points scored will be lost in a blizzard of class war-shoutiness.’

Since Rachel Reeves’s statement there have been signs the Government’s national poll numbers are starting to stabilise

They will. Not least because Labour are privately pleased at the way criticism of the Budget is being led by such a high-profile media celebrity.

‘The build up was all about whether it would impact working people. That’s why we set the bar high to small farms,’ one Labour source told me. ‘When you’ve got millionaires like Jeremy Clarkson and billionaires like James Dyson slagging it off because their tax loophole is being closed it tells people we’ve targeted difficult tax rises properly.

There is some evidence to support that assertion. In the month leading up to the Budget, Labour’s poll rating was in freefall, and Keir Starmer’s personal approval numbers were amongst the worst ever recorded. 

But since Reeves’s statement there have been signs the Government’s national poll numbers are starting to stabilise.

 True, the Tories were two points ahead of Labour in a poll this week. But that’s just one survey and the Prime Minister has actually enjoyed a modest uptick in his own popularity.

The reality is most Britons do not own multi-million pound farms and have not been benefiting from the significant tax concessions farmers have been receiving over recent years

It’s true that Jeremy Clarkson is a more grounded personality than a Taylor Swift or a George Clooney. And he is not backing a party or leader, but a specific cause.

But the reality is most Britons do not own multi-million pound farms. They have not been benefiting from the significant tax concessions farmers have been receiving over recent years.

And whilst they have sympathy for anyone suffering hardship as a result of decisions taken by the political establishment, they are not going to be swayed by special pleading based on overwrought talk of farmers facing a rural pogrom at the hands of Commissar Reeves.

Especially when one of Britain’s most prominent self-styled farmers is quite clearly not short of a bob or two, and will not exactly be struggling to make ends meet even when the new tax rules come into effect.

When Jeremy Clarkson first announced he was stepping away from his supercars to dip his toe into agriculture, he was entirely honest about his motivation. ‘Land is a better investment than any bank can offer,’ he explained. ‘The Government doesn’t get any of my money when I die. And the price of the food that I grow can only go up.’

As a celebrity farmer Clarkson may be well placed to see first hand the disproportionate impact of the Government’s £40 billion tax hike on his neighbours. But he is a celebrity all the same. And people are tired of being lectured from the red carpet.

If our farmers really do want to mobilise public support, they are going to have to do it themselves. 

If those who have been working the land for generations are genuinely set to experience untold hardship at the hands of Ministers who have little appreciation of – or regard for – rural life, then they are the people who Britain needs to see on their televisions, and in the pages of their newspapers.

Not the guy who made a name and fortune test driving Rolls-Royces, racing Ferraris and firing used Vauxhall Astras into quarries.

Kamala Harris bet the farm on her celebrity endorsers. She lost, and lost big. Britain’s farmers can’t afford to make the same mistake.