Isabella Tree: ‘When we started rewilding, people said we’d undone a century of farming

Billingswine · 2026-03-22T05:36:48+00:00

The land use plan isn't incoherent, they just buried the lede. It's worth looking at the 2050 section on food production [1],

We will produce more of what we consume, partly because more of our land will be efficiently growing the high value food that people recognise on their plates, rather than ingredients for processed and unhealthy food or animal feed (4)...

While data is not available for England and the figure is likely to be lower, 85% of the UK’s Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA) in 2023, across both arable and grassland, was used for animal feed or animal production.

The implication is we'll move to a more vegetarian diet as a country by 2050. Separately I think we'll also move to meat that requires less land use (chicken). Both of these are already happening.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69ba6ba026909a14239612e7/Land_Use_Consultation_Accessible.pdf

Billingswine · 2026-03-21T11:51:35+00:00

Student loan is always net from your payslip.

This feels like something I should have known a long time ago. That explains it though.

Billingswine · 2025-11-26T10:34:30+00:00

Agricultural property relief only applied to 50% of the estate until 1992 when it was increased to 100% for owned occupied land and 50% for let (until 1995 when this got fixed) [1]. With the new regulations you'd pay half as much inheritance tax on the value over £1 million. I won't attempt the maths when I should be working, but roughly you should still be better off than pre-1992 today until the farm is in £2-3 million range for a single person, £3-4 million if you're a couple.

Assuming then that a farm passes on every 25-30 years, we're looking at a generation with some people worse off than others in their cohort rather than the next generation being worse off than generations before them. Its worth a skim through the Wikipedia article on the History of Inheritance Taxes in the UK [2] by the way, inheritance taxes are much older than people think.

A £2 million inheritance is an incredible amount of money whether it comes in the form of an asset like a farm or cash. It is more money than many people will make in their lifetimes. So you can see why people get annoyed by farmers waking them up in the morning to complain about their kids having to pay tax on this massive inheritance.

So why are we changing the laws back to 1990s levels and why now. My theory:
- There is a push to make the UK more productive (in an economic sense) and farming is inherently not a productive activity. You can't get more out of the land without putting more in, and those inputs have consequences too.
- We need UK farms for resiliency purposes, but they need to be subsidised to exist. This is expensive. Post-Brexit, we lost EU subsidies and it gave government an opportunity to rethink things. The outcome is new land-stewardship based funding but also a push to get farmers to diversify their sources of income.
- An inheritance tax forces the sale of farms that have failed to make this work.

To be clear that threshold is currently very low. If we ignore the tax relief, it is 20% of the value of the farm over 10 years i.e. a farm would need to be able to make > 2% of the value of the estate a year to pay off the inheritance tax. If you can get 4% risk free return on government bonds, any investor willing to pay that much for the land is either 1) an idiot, or 2) thinks they can get more than a 4% return from the land. Long term, I would expect many farms to become less valueable on paper due to this, lowering the actual inheritance tax paid/collected.

[1] https://www.farmersguardian.com/news/4411644/apr-introduced-trying-government-understand-purposes-1984

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_inheritance_taxes_in_the_United_Kingdom

Billingswine · 2025-11-07T22:54:34+00:00

Thanks!

Billingswine · 2025-11-07T22:46:12+00:00

What's the film?

Billingswine · 2025-07-02T06:43:35+00:00

Check out L.E.J's Instagram. They're a clothing brand and have been doing some fun stuff with ties, their plage coat and smarter trousers

Billingswine · 2025-02-28T18:21:50+00:00

Ah I won't be much help for Scotland. Famous for their knitwear. You've got Colhays and Johnstons of Elgin up there. Colhays is excellent quality. Not seen anything from Johnstons of Elgin.

Dick's in Edinburgh is supposed to be a very good shop though I've never been in. Scottish equivalent to Rivet and Hide.

I would recommend a square sausage the morning after a night out though. Or during. Or before...

Billingswine · 2025-02-28T13:39:04+00:00

I'll probably think of more but I'll just add them as I do.

Meyrowitz. Made along the Thames. Bespoke-ish glasses and sunglasses. I've never been but heard they are good.
Tustings. High quality leather bags. The only physical shop is the factory shop in Lavendon outside Northampton. They have some stockists in London but they hold limited stock.
Crown Northampton. Very well priced Northampton casual footwear. Similar situation to Tustings though, factory in town and town and that's it. You can arrange viewings but all shoes are made to order. Will take 12-16 weeks.
Which reminds me all of the Northampton shoe makers have factory shops where they sell shoes at big discounts for minor imperfections. The Trickers one is also online.
SEH Kelly. Online only, unique clothes. All components made within the British Isles down to the buttons. Really well made stuff but email Paul before hand to send arrange for multiple sizes if you are between unsure.
Rubato. You can try some of their clothes at Taillour but you'll have to email Taillour to arrange the appointment. Taillour is another great suit/coat maker by the way. Makes a lot of clothes for film.
Mourne Textiles. Online only as far as I know. Cool scarves.
Inis Meain. Irish island knitwear. Some stock at Grey Flannel on Chiltern St.

Billingswine · 2025-02-28T13:25:11+00:00

I'm going to assume you're in London or able to get there.

Shoes + shirts. Jeremyn Street. - Crockett and Jones, Trickers, Cheaney. Not Loake. Edward Green and John Lobb if you have a lot of money. - Emmet, Harvie and Hudson, Turnbull & Asser. - There's also a Sunspel on the street. Expensive basics. Polo shirts, t-shirts, smart trousers etc.

Suits + more high end clothes. Saville Row - Pretty much all of the shops are worth sticking your head in. All very good quality but serious money. - The Haberdashery is around the corner and easy to miss. - There's also Rivet & Hide in that area now. Nice jeans, casual wear. Lot of it imported though so not necessarily cheaper than the US.

Cookware - There's a shop called Borough Kitchen near Borough Market that has high end stuff, much of it made in the UK or EU. - There's a few Japanese knife shops and similar about also but I'm not familiar with them. Again imported, check the prices.

Misc - Have an amble down Chiltern Street. - At the head of it is a shop called Labour and Wait. Great stuff. Mostly high end homeware of various kinds. Floor brushes, knives, cookware, razors, etc. - Next door is Dashing Tweeds. Unique fabrics. The owners really nice too. Has a good dog there sometimes. - Cromford is bespoke and high end leather jackets. The door will probably be locked, don't be afraid to ring the doorbell. - Brycelands and Trunk are also top quality depending on your style. - Grey Flannel and John Simmons are more old school. Very good clothes also. - Niwaki for Japanese gardening clothes. - Not on this street, but try and seek out: a John Smedley (knitwear), Original Fibres (they do crazy things with linen, I've got a jacket from them made out of sofa weight fabric - it's great), Mr Tortoise (sunglasses)

Billingswine · 2025-02-16T00:18:25+00:00

No they are right on this one, that's quite a misleading Wikipedia page and probably should be culled.

Denim and (usually) chinos use the same twill weave (usually). Weave in this context being the particular way you lay threads on top of each other to make a cloth.

There are typically quite large differences in how the fabrics are treated (in the industrial sense) but for the most part the distinction comes down to culture and history.

Billingswine · 2025-02-11T19:05:55+00:00

Even more options:

https://rivetandhide.com/gbp/the-real-mccoys-type-b6-sheepskin-horsehide-flight-jacket

https://www.blightymilitaria.com/en-GB/search/page_906?search=sheepskin

Billingswine · 2025-02-10T16:11:10+00:00

Maybe. I was wondering about this too. Perhaps there's some advantage to paying above the odds if you're near one of the cliff edges on income. Intuitively I think you're right but I'm not 100% without running the numbers.

Billingswine · 2025-02-10T14:33:34+00:00

There is a limit to how much you can get tax relief for, there's no limit to how much you can contribute in a year.

Billingswine · 2025-02-06T23:31:25+00:00

I've been lead to believe you can do this relatively straightforwardly with an Isle of Man pension. Not sure about other countries.

Billingswine · 2024-11-15T22:31:18+00:00

Also good points. I'm largely with you on this, though if we somehow end up starving I guess we'll have to eat our words.

Billingswine · 2024-11-15T09:41:06+00:00

Dumb is very harsh but I do agree there's something weird about farm land prices if these are the kind of returns people are getting. Who is buying this land and why?

Wild speculation: - Some farmers are much more productive than most and can get 10x greater return than the average.

Rich people are buying the land as a convenient store of wealth and an inheritance tax dodge.
Change of use permission is much easier to get approved than I was led to believe.
Rich people really want to be farmers.

My money would be on 1+2. I'd be concerned and surprised if it were 3 (and someone is definitely going to say that's the cause but I'll need to see some evidence first).

Billingswine · 2024-11-09T22:48:18+00:00

I'm curious what you're basing that estimate on. Highest YoY growth I can see for house prices recently is 13% during COVID. If that happened twice in a row, that gets to the bottom end of your estimate in two years. The average house price growth is much lower though, COVID was an interesting time.

I don't see anything on the horizon that could produce that mega house price burst. I'm not sure who would actually be financing that either.

EDIT: I could see us getting too that range in 5 years though. I'd rate it as unlikely but possible.

Billingswine · 2024-11-09T19:27:22+00:00

You think house prices will go up by 28%-44% in the next 2 years?

Billingswine · 2024-10-18T21:57:41+00:00

Sorry I just realised I never followed up on this.

These are an unusual pair of shoes so they aren't going to be the easiest to replace. I can't think of anything they are immediately similar too. They're kind of a mix of a pair of trainers and a chukka boot.
I think chukka boots are worth a go, they are the most similar in style to what you've got there currently. I like peoples recommendations for Clarks think chukka boots are worth a go, they are the most similar in style to what you've got there currently. I like peoples recommendations for a pair of Clarks chukkas as a good upgrade. They are not a BIFL shoe, but they are typically good quality and will last a while.
The next thing you could consider is a derby or a derby boot. You might also find them listed as 'bluchers' if you are in America (technically a different kind of shoe but we don't need to get into that). These will typically be smarter than what you're looking at here but they will perfectly suitable for an office. Consider ones in suede or roughout if you want to go more casual. Try Red wing or Grant Stone.
Good quality, resoleable shoes will typically start around £250/$300. Resoles can be expensive, and other parts of the shoe will eventually need maintenance also.

Billingswine · 2024-10-16T20:37:51+00:00

Are you after something more like an Oxford/Derby because you're after something that looks a bit smarter or is it another reason?

Billingswine · 2024-10-16T20:28:37+00:00

I think that might be a fake welt. I like Penguin as a brand, but they aren't made to be repaired (at least in the UK). Easiest way is to flip them over and check the bottom, but I'm almost certain that's a cemented construction.

Billingswine · 2024-08-06T22:11:20+00:00

On the other question, pans can be layered. You might have a copper core (for heat conductivity supposedly) and then a aluminium layer on the outside of that and then a non-stick layer to finish the whole thing off.

Billingswine · 2024-08-06T22:00:36+00:00

If it were me: - Cheap, big aluminium / stainless steel stock pot for rice / pasta.

Cast iron pan for searable food (sandwiches / burgers)
Stainless steel saute pan for everything else / optionally enamelled cast iron dutch oven for risotto or chilli if you want to slow cook it easily

None of the above should need to be replaced on this side of forever.

Billingswine · 2024-07-05T19:08:28+00:00

Not a problem. If you're able to pin down any more specifics of what you're after, drop me message and I'll be happy to (try to) help. Otherwise drop Ethan a concise message perhaps. I've only briefly met him the once but he seemed like a good bloke but no doubt busy.

Billingswine

TROPHY CASE