One of the few truly interesting TV shows of today is “Clarkson’s Farm”, of which I recently watched the third season. (A later watching of the fourth season is discussed more briefly towards the end.)
A less obvious upside of the show is how it illustrates many political problems. Below, I will go into some of them.
For those not familiar with the show, it deals with the attempts of Jeremy Clarkson (formerly of “Top Gear” and other motor-/car-centric shows) to run a farm in the U.K., together with various helpers, most notably Kaleb (who actually knows something about farming).
I caution that about a month has gone by between my watching that season and the time of writing, so my memory might be off in detail. The situation with previous seasons is naturally even worse.
The name of this page also plays on “Animal Farm”, which, while very different in nature, is famed for its political parallels.
According to news on 2024-10-16e Clarkson (“Diddly Squat: Home to Roost”) and Kaleb (“It’s a Farming Thing”) have published a book each that might go deeper into these topics. However, I have not read them and cannot vouch for the contents.
The most obvious is how Clarkson is a repeated victim of excessive and hindering regulation, arbitrariness from the “council” (a form of local U.K. government), and other types of governmental interference. At points, as depicted from Clarkson’s point of view, it seems as if he might be a victim of outright sabotage on irrelevant grounds, e.g. because he is seen as a nuisance. (While this is not implausible to me, based on what I have seen of politicians, civil servants, and humans in general, we must also consider Hanlon’s Razor and the risk that Clarkson has given a too partisan view of events. It might be telling, however, that Clarkson did score a considerable victory in season 3, which saw a great many council-imposed obstacles removed.)
A particular complication, well matching my own experiences with the German government, is that he has very limited recourse when in disagreement. For instance, he abstained from a planned appeal of some decision in season 2, because it would simply have been too expensive to be justifiable, likely hundreds of thousands of pounds, with an uncertain outcome and a considerable time delay, even were he ultimately successful. (Unfortunately, I am a little vague on the details by now.)
However, the word “excessive” above is important: Some amount of regulation might well be beneficial, or even necessary, e.g. to ensure food safety. The point is not that there is regulation but that the regulation is excessive. (And this is borne out by other sources and matches what is true in many other countries and fields.) Much of regulation brings less value than it does damage, and some regulation might be entirely without value or only serve to favor some special interest group at the cost of everyone else. Consider the attempts to limit Clarkson’s ability to run a shop, serve food, and provide parking opportunities on his own land. Maybe, e.g, there are some benefits of a non-obvious nature to preventing parking, but they have to be measured against the disadvantages that arise for the land-owner and the violation of his rights that ensue—and in the case at hand, any such benefits seems drowned by the disadvantages. (While the case might be different, if Clarkson had simply turned his entire farm into a commercial car park. Note that an indirect benefit for some locals might be argued, in that some disapprove of the amount of traffic caused by the farming celebrity, and that the lack of parking could block the traffic, but that applying such arguments would amount to an abuse of a regulation to achieve an unrelated outcome.)
A partial problem is that it is hard for an outsider to judge what regulations and whatnots carry what justification and when the word “excessive” applies. Corresponding care should be taken when judging individual regulations. (However, there can be little doubt that there is too much regulation overall in both U.K. farming and in a great many other fields and countries.)
A repeated issue is that this-and-that simply costs too much relative the value added and what it reasonably should cost (as opposed to just what the budget allows, which is a different issue).
This in particular with the cost of construction, which reflects a growing problem in the Western world and is, likely, largely government caused, e.g. through (again) excessive regulation, distortions of incentives, sabotage of market mechanisms, and similar.
I have repeatedly, strictly as a thought experiment, toyed with the idea of starting my own construction company, as there simply must be a better way to do things, e.g. by trying to deliver more value by more productive work than the typical German construction company does. (A pervasive other problem being a poor attitude, lack of professionalism, undue delays, and whatnot. For instance, near where I live, there is a regular apartment house that has been in renovation since before COVID—or, likely, several times the time it originally took to build the same house from the ground up.) However, I fear that any such attempt would ultimately fail exactly through the strong government and other interventionism that would hamper even those with a better attitude. Note e.g. the problems caused by various German quasi-guilds, their anti-competitive influence, and the additional barriers to entry that they bring.
Other deterrents against moving from thought experiment to practical experiment include that I would have great troubles finding enough capital for a serious attempt (note e.g. the high cost per year of even a single employee—to a considerable part because of the government) and the strong suspicion that I would run into similar problems of misestimation that Clarkson does, just in another field. Working around the capital issue by beginning as a small one-man business is certainly not an option for someone without the right background.
To this might be added other mechanisms of a pervasive nature, e.g. that government-controlled inflation, even before the COVID-countermeasure era, has driven prices up in an unnecessary manner or prevented them from sinking as production methods improved, that high taxes cut severely into disposable income, and similar. The inflation-driving mishandling of both the COVID-countermeasure era and the parallel energy-supply issues has done considerably further damage when we compare 2024 with 2019, but form more of a special case.
To some degree, Clarkson, himself, illustrates problems with politicians—except that he does what he does on a small farm owned by him and at his own cost and risk, while the politicians do so on all farms (literal and metaphorical), regardless of ownership, at the risk of others, etc. To boot, they usually do so without even bothering with a test run on a single farm before pushing something on all farms.
Most notably, Clarkson has a great many ideas that might appear brilliant but which simply do not pan out—and often fail to pan out because he is too naive about the complications involved, including costs, risks, and variations on the “spillage” theme. A great many politicians match this to a tee, except for often suggesting things that are much more obviously unlikely to work, e.g. because they have always failed in the past (and, of course, except for factors like taking risks with someone else’s money). Kamala Harris’ recent drive for price controls is a good example of something that might seem promising to the highly naive but which the non-naive know will do more harm than good. Ditto, if not to the same extreme degree, many of the suggestions pushed by the new Labour government in the U.K.
A recurring issue is how Clarkson (like many politicians) begins to implement something before he has done sufficient research. For instance, at one point in season 3, he finds himself stumped when trying to bring a large machine through a too narrow gate. Had he bothered with something as simple as checking the gates, roads, and whatnots in advance, he could have made better decisions, be it through abstaining from the use of that machine (likely, a rental) or through finding means of bringing it to its intended place of work with less hassle and fewer delays during the period of rental. In many other cases, the research might have been as simple as asking someone in the know whether this-or-that would be likely to work, bring a profit, whatnot before forging ahead.
However, in terms of a “test run” and the politicians’ failure to make one, Clarkson often has the excuse that a one-season attempt to do something on one farm could be viewed as exactly a test run. Going on an even smaller scale might sometimes have been a good idea, but, critically, not always. A smaller test of mushrooms, e.g., might not have made sense. In other cases, a smaller test might have been misleading through hiding complications or not showing sufficient effects. It might e.g. be that having a flock of sheep reveals something that having one or two sheep does not.
Moreover, a larger attempt might make for more entertaining or engaging television, which is a concern of a type that a politician cannot legitimately and ethically consider with public policy (notwithstanding that many do).
To boot, the maybe most promising ideas (were it not for that council...) only work because of a special circumstance, namely that Clarkson is a famous guy with a TV show. Consider his shop: He is by no means unique in having a farm with a shop, but few other farms can draw on the additional customers brought in by having that shop feature on a TV show and it would be foolish to recommend that other farmers also run a shop in a blanket manner—this the more so as every additional shop could spread custom thinner. A politician, however, might well argue that if a (real or metaphorical) shop works for Clarkson, then shops are the way to go, we should encourage the running of shops, and we should do so by either handing out government subsidies (at the cost of the tax-payers) or by making shops mandatory.
A dispute between Clarkson and Kaleb provides a particularly telling example of a politician’s mentality: For season 3, they have a bet on who will earn more money for the farm, Kaleb from the regular farming, over which he has been put in charge as newly appointed farm manager, or Clarkson from various other potential sources of income, e.g. the harvesting of wild berries and the aforementioned mushrooms. At some point, Clarkson had a portion of the farm under Kaleb’s control “wild farmed” in the hope of an extracurricular gain. Afterwards, when comparing costs and profits, he tried to stick Kaleb with the cost for this wild farming because the area at hand was Kaleb’s, never mind Kaleb’s protests, that the decision was Clarkson’s, and that Clarkson was the one who stood to gain—typical politician thinking. A saner system might e.g. have treated the event as a rental, where Clarkson “rents” the field from Kaleb, pays all other costs, and reaps all profits (should there be any), leaving Kaleb with a positive “ledger entry” for the rent. (Of course, many politicians would deliberately avoid such scenarios, e.g. because it seems too “Capitalist” or because they can simply force their will upon others—profits for me, costs for thee.)
In the defense of Clarkson, he might merely have attempted to spice up the show a little, as opposed to being an idiot. This, in particular, as (a) Kaleb still won the bet, (b) Clarkson ultimately owned the entire farm, even the parts managed by Kaleb, implying that the money at stake were only the small amount of the bet, not the much larger sums involved with the actual farming or the specific “ledger entry” under dispute.
In August 2025, not quite a year after the original writing, I watched season 4, which saw much screen time shifted away from farming and towards a new pub enterprise, including searching for a pub, renovations of the pub chosen, complications around this-and-that relating to the pub, and the chaotic opening of the pub. A few further comments based on this season:
Many problems go back to the issue of “other people’s money”. With politicians and bureaucrats, this is not limited to e.g. money collected by taxes but includes e.g. costs pushed onto the “other people” through regulations surrounding something and conditions that have to be met to receive a certain permit. In a more general sense, the same idea applies when money is not or only indirectly the matter at hand, e.g. in that work must be put in or opportunities be forgone. (Also note the idea of “opportunity costs”, very often of importance both to understanding the problems with and around typical governments and to running a business well. The idea of “externalities” is also often relevant below, and often overlapping when costs and opportunity costs are caused for someone else by the government or some other party.) Indeed, the work, costs, and whatnot are typically not limited to what immediately arises from e.g. the need to comply with a regulation (say, by marking the ears of cows with numbered tags)—they also include efforts to handle various paperwork around the regulation (say, documenting what cow has been tagged with what number), to keep oneself up-to-date on the regulation, understanding the regulation, fighting faulty government decisions/fines/whatnot based on the regulation, and similar.
For instance, if the government decides that farms must have a minimum of one badger sett per acre, it can simply dictate this to the farmers, with costs for the government that are far smaller than the costs for the farmers. (A slight caricature of actual regulations on the show.) Likewise, the government does not have to carry any costs caused by any (non-huntable) badgers on a farmer’s property. (Not a caricature.) To boot, chances are that the government would underestimate the cost for it self, making matters worse in terms of correct incentives and whatnots.
For instance, the government might consider the cost to write up and promulgate a certain regulation but fail to appropriately consider the need to answer questions and give clarifications by phone, when those subject to the regulation try to square things out. This the more so when there is a long distance between decision maker and telephone, as when Westminster creates work for a low-level local bureaucrat.
In Germany, there are at least some cases when the government outright refuses to answer questions about its own rules and regulations, because it has shoved off the responsibility onto private entities, e.g. health insurers for health-insurance related questions. (Note: This not for questions about the insurers products, business terms, etc.—but truly for questions about governmental rules and regulations.)
An often overlooked (by politicians, Leftists, and Leftist politicians, in particular) issue is how costs that fall on others and the spending of “other people’s money” can have negative effects on overall society, even beyond factors like waste and beyond the damage done to the individual victim of the cost. For instance, if builders and building material are increasingly hired to fulfill some new regulation, this is very likely to lead to both misallocation of resources and increased prices for other building activities. In a next step, we might see workers who ideally should have remained in some other field take up hammers and drills to keep up with demand in the building industry, leading to shortages elsewhere. In yet another, the distortion caused by the new regulation might eventually go away (e.g. because the regulation is repealed or because the regulation created a greater need in the short than the long term, say, to bring existing buildings up to some standard). If so, unemployment could now ensue until workers transition elsewhere. Worse, calls to subsidize the building industry, to keep employment up artificially, could follow and be granted, making the damage greater and the costs larger. (Also cf. the next item.)
The issue of “other people’s money” can also occur in other contexts. For instance, Clarkson had hired two women to be advisors or whatnots for the pub opening, who seemed to work on the principle of “We have a great idea! Let’s do it!” with little concern for costs (that Clarkson, not they, would have to pay). Note, in particular, the suggestion of giant umbrellas (“jumbrellas”) at a cost of 40 (?) grand.
(While it is very hard to gain a deeper insight into the minds, competence, etc., of these women based just on selected clips on the show, they gave me a poor impression in general. Notably, at the end of their engagement, they actually sat Clarkson down to tell him (a) that they were pub experts, and (b) that it was a problem for a pub when water, electricity, and whatnot fell out—something of which he was well aware, if in doubt because of his experiences in the preceding few days, and which a random pub ignoramus of the street could have told him based on common sense. Even Keir Starmer might, just barely, be aware of something that basic.)
Another distorter of incentives, and a usually costly one, is subsidies of various kinds. Results include further misallocation; businesses that are not profitable being kept alive, when it would be better for almost everyone if they disappeared and left room for more profitable successors; lesser incentives to run the actual business at hand with an eye at (pre-subsidy) profitability; etc. (But I grant that specifically farming could be a partial exception on some counts—the more so as farmers struggle, in part, because of the excessive impositions that come from the government, making subsidies a roundabout type of compensation for that. Better, of course, would be to reduce the impositions in the first place.)
A particularly interesting example featured on the show, where farmers were given incentives to put aside land for various deemed-good-by-the-government purposes that did not result in food production (and/or in lower food production than regular farming; I did not look into details). This alone could lead to higher food prices and/or a greater need to import food—but then long stretches of very poor weather had a massively negative impact on the regular farming, making the loss of production capacity to these deemed-good-by-the-government purposes the more harmful.
Whether the purposes might be sufficiently valuable to justify incentives or other intervention, I have not investigated. That is a matter on another dimension and the general point stands regardless.
It is also interesting that the reason for farming subsidies has historically often been to keep a country self-sufficient in terms of food production, e.g. with an eye at a risk of a future war, while the subsidies occurring on the show might have the opposite effect, through reducing food production even when the number of farms or farmers are kept up.
There seemed to be great problems with getting the right information, be it because those who should inform did not, because information was not yet finalized, or because some other reason yet. For instance, with no apparent prior notification, an important-to-Clarkson’s-pub road was blocked from one day to another. (But I cannot rule out that reasonable advance information had been overlooked by Clarkson and/or had simply not been displayed on the show.) Similarly, in a previous season, the infamous council had banned parking over large stretches of road, with no apparent notification and with an implementation from one day to another. For instance, post-Brexit promises of replacement subsidies were made–and only with this season was there clarity how much farmers could get for doing what (in a radically different system than pre-Brexit; also note the deemed-good-by-the-government purposes above).
Interestingly, during my own period of watching, I suddenly found that I had no water in the apartment for likely more than an hour—with no prior notification of any kind. The exact reason is not clear, but in light of the time (around 5 AM), it seems most likely that this was some type of deliberately-planned-for-the-night action by the local water provider, local government, or similar. Here inconveniences and outright problems might ensue that could have been avoided with better information. (As was, I made the discovery after going to the toilet and wanting to wash my hands. I could flush, because I had a full water tank; a multi-member family might have been stuck with an unflushable toilet after the first member visited the toilet. Someone else might have been forced to forgo an early morning cup of coffee or to dry-swallow some medicine. Etc. Even death cannot be ruled out, even be it an exceptionally rare event.) Then we have the issue of possible water pollution, e.g. because a pipe had been opened and mud had gotten in. Indeed, I have seen recommendations to keep taps running for several minutes after such works (but when one does not know about the works...—and how often might similar works have taken place without my having noticed?); indeed, after running the taps for a while, once the water was back on, I wanted to make a cup of coffee, found a slight discoloration in the water, ran the taps for another while, and only then had clear water—and even clear water does not necessarily imply unpolluted water.
On another occasion (and in another apartment), there were very loud works on tram tracks outside my window through an entire night—with no prior notification, with no chance of getting any sleep, and with not one word on compensation.
Here we also have a very clear case in the extended “other people’s money” family (other cases above are also arguable examples, but less obvious/illustrative ones): The cost for the loss of sleep and whatnot fell on me, not those who reaped the benefits from the work. A truly fair system, distributing costs in a reasonable manner and giving correct incentives, might not only have forced the causer to give proper notifications but to arrange and pay for hotel stays for those living next to the street.
(And speaking of death, cf. above, what if someone who had suffered a sleepless night traveled to work by car, feel asleep or just made a sleepiness-induced mistake, and caused a disaster in a heavily trafficked street?)
The season contains a great many further examples of e.g. bright-seeming ideas that do not pan out, of unexpected complications, unforeseen costs, and similar (cf. the original text). Two overlapping issues that I, in more general forms, recognize as particular annoyances from my own work for others (especially, when project managers are poor and/or pressure from executives or third parties force unrealistic project schedules or unrealistic changes to project schedules) and that can be highly problematic in e.g. public projects:
Firstly, the schedule for the pub opening was shortened by one week, leading to great stress, works that were literally completed immediately before letting guests in, and work that was sufficiently shoddy and/or shoddily tested that there were problems with electricity, water, and whatnot post-opening.
Secondly, there was no “bug fixing” period, where the correct functioning of this-and-that could be tested in a low-stakes situation and, in case of problems, corrected before the stakes grew high.
This was the sadder as Clarkson had seen a similar failure, on a lesser scale, when he rushed his on-farm restaurant in a previous season. Obviously, he had not drawn the right lessons. (Here, the aforementioned two women/advisors might have brought more valuable and constructive criticism but, if they did, it was not shown on screen—much unlike the pubs-need-water-and-electricity trivialities.)
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