Daily Mail Farm Subsidy Fail

Among the rewards garnered by the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre during his tenure as the Daily Mail’s editor has been a property portfolio that includes a London pied-à-terre in Belgravia (that means it’s expensive), a Home Counties property of suitably generous proportion, and Langwell, an extensive estate in North-West Scotland, which is marketed to shooting parties.

So what? I pay my f***ing taxes, c***

While enjoying the unquestioned benefits of these assets, the Vagina Monologue can consider which luckless targets his paper will next select for the ritual kicking so beloved of him and his obedient hackery. These include all kinds of Government bodies, especially those where there are people who talk foreign, or who are insufficiently grateful to be part of the United Kingdom.

So it should surprise no-one that anything related to the EU is considered fair game, especially when it comes to any form of subsidy, because this means someone is getting something that Daily Mail readers, who by definition are “hard working taxpayers” are not only not getting, but are having to pay for. And the most visible, and easily demonised kind of these are farm subsidies.

Those who receive farm subsidies can expect exposure by Dacre’s fearless hacks: “Tarzan” Hesteltine was upbraided by Richard Kay for his “£900,000 EU handout”, while Lord Henley was alleged to have received £200,000 over several years. And Richard Benyon had received a whopping £2 million in subsidies! As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. Even the Royal Family got slated.

The Queen had received £7 million, while the Duke of Westminster got £6 million, in “bonanza payments from Brussels”. It got worse: the Mail told “How city tycoons claim they are farmers to milk the EU's millions”. So people working in London were pretending to be farmers so they could trouser subsidies! This is clearly A Very Bad Thing Indeed. Then there were those ungrateful Scots to kick.

“Scottish independence would be economic disaster, finance experts warn ... England to take on ALL of Scotland's debts if voters back independence ... Sharing the pound with an independent Scotland could be a disaster like the Euro”. Yeah, that Scottish Government crowd are rubbish! Who’d willingly do business with them, eh? Er, actually Paul Dacre would. And he’d also do business with the EU.

His Langwell Estate “received EU grants to the value of 300,408 euros in 2012”. That means farming subsidies. The 2011 bung was £155,583. It is suggested that there was yet more money paid over for tree planting. If the last, estimated at over £600,000, is true, that means Dacre has pocketed over a million quid. That makes him an even bigger rank stinking hypocrite.

What you will not read in the Daily Mail. No change there, then.