Jeremy Clarkson at the recent farmers’ protest (Image: Getty)
‘s pub has been teeming with enthusiastic punters ever since it opened its doors back in August.
However, fully-booked tables and queues so long he’s had to resort to giving diners pagers to alert them to when they can eat haven’t translated to profits. Just as Diddly Squat Farm struggled to turn a profit, making less than £150 in its first year of operation, he’s also struggling with the pub.
And the frustrated star has now delivered a new dig at leader whose inheritance tax change has enraged farmers.
Talking in a new column in the , he shared the strain of paying “£27,000 a month” on “parking and traffic marshals to keep the council off our back”.
He then swiped: “And that’s before you get to the cost of employing people in Starmer’s Britain these days.” vowed that she wouldn’t raise taxes or National Insurance (NI) contributions for working people – but then went on to raise NI contributions for employers.
Many small business owners have spoken out since, saying that the rises have forced them to make staff members redundant and to employ fewer new recruits than they’d hoped to due to the rising costs.
Jeremy has been critical of this policy, as well as attending the protest against farmer inheritance tax hikes which leave some facing selling their land instead of passing it down to their children.
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Keir Starmer’s policies have proved unpopular (Image: Getty)
In his latest column, Jeremy laid bare the true cost of running a pub, as well as some of the hidden expenses he hadn’t accounted for.
He’s been surprised by the level of petty theft he’s encountered, with people swiping glasses to take home instead of leaving them on the tables when they finish their drinks of Hawkstone.
One visitor to the pub had an “accident” in the garden toilet so severe that it left one of his staff members “retching” for several minutes – and Jeremy then had to employ a haz-mat team.
Recalling that “no amount of festival visits” could prepare anyone for the “horror” of the scene, he groaned: “It was everywhere and in such vast quantities that no ordinary plumbing or cleaning equipment would even scratch the surface.
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“A whole team of chemically trained hazmat engineers had to be employed.”
Jeremy hadn’t factored that cost into his budget, while he also lamented that a generator costs the pub £100 per day.
He also spends £400 per week on keeping customers warm on the festive light-adorned terrace, with cold Christmas winds otherwise threatening to destroy custom.
“The customers are coming. There’s no problem there. But turning their visits into a profit is nigh-on impossible,” he groaned.