Farming
What our 500kg house bull taught us about the value of life
Death and failure are more integral to farming than any other experience that I’ve witnessed in my life. Some things…
HS2’s completion is as likely as King Harry’s coronation
Seven years ago, when HS2 was still officially costed at £33 billion, I wrote that I was looking forward to…
Our tree-planting obsession may do more harm than good
‘Four beef burgers is the same as flying to New York and back! FOUR BURGERS!’ When I arrived at the…
Hare coursing gangs are terrorising the countryside
If you’re driving at dawn or at dusk in the countryside at this time of year, you might well see…
A picture of rural Kentucky: Stand by Me, by Wendell Berry, reviewed
Anyone picking up a book by Wendell Berry, whether it be fiction, essays or a collection of his lucid and…
In defence of British landowners (and the truth about grouse moors)
I was surprised to read the article by Ben Macdonald in last week’s Spectator urging Britain’s grouse moor owners to…
In defence of inaction: why it’s usually best to do nothing
I recently came across the Small Robot Company, a British agricultural robotics start-up. Their vision is that with smart, autonomous…
A cow is better than a bank balance
Laikipia, Kenya A minotaur head glowers at me through the bathroom window while I am brushing my teeth in…
Farming is a hard life no matter where you do it
Laikipia, Kenya Erupe is a Kenyan farmer. He owns a smallholding of a few acres not far from my own…
Heavy-going and heavy-handed: Dark River reviewed
Dark River is the much-anticipated third feature from British writer/director Clio Barnard and it is one of those bleak, rural-…
Letters: Leave Theresa May alone – she’s doing her best
Stop knocking May Sir: I find this knocking of Theresa May increasingly depressing (‘Theresa’s choice’, 3 February). She has a terrible job…
Cold Comfort Farm comes to Kenya
Laikipia I woke with the breath of a leopard a few feet from me as I lay in my bed.…
More menace – and magic – on the moors
Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney was one of the surprise stand-outs of last year, and a worthy winner of the…
Why Kenya matters
Laikipia Flying home across Laikipia’s ranchlands with Martin after a farmers’ meeting, I see the plateau dotted with cattle…
Wild life
Laikipia Ripping up the black cotton soil on the farm’s high savannah I get a sense of what it must…
‘I like making things’
Sir James Dyson would make a good therapist for anxious Brexiteers. Everything about him is comfortingly precise — his manner…
Diary
A trip to the supermarché at the beginning of our French month yielded many of the necessary things one also…
Voting in? You have the blood of Spanish bulls on your hands
Britain’s animals would be solidly for Leave. Here’s why
The chief executives who volunteer for pay cuts
Boss cuts The chief executive of the Co-operative Group, Richard Pennycock, asked for a pay cut, saying his job had…
The Lahore attacks reflected hatred of Christians. Why must we deny it?
You might expect that the murder of Christians would excite particular horror in countries of Christian heritage. Yet almost the…
Why won’t the media call a cock a cock?
On the Radio 4 news at 11 o’clock last Saturday morning there was a joky report about roosters in Brisbane. The…
How Brexit would affect British farmers
How would British farming change without EU subsidies?
From the archives: the liberty of the battlefield
From ‘Soldiers for the land’, The Spectator, 13 November 1915: It is certain that, when the war is over, tens of…
Ten myths about Brexit
Don’t believe the scare stories about leaving the EU
A piece of primeval England reborn in Sussex
A piece of ancient England is being reborn around a castle in Sussex
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