Grand Tour star Jeremy Clarkson is calling for golf to be banned.
The former Top Gear presenter-turned-farmer said it would be better for the environment to ban golf than countryside sports like pheasant shooting. There are just under 3,000 golf courses in the UK, with around 800,000 members of clubs and around 5million on-off players.
The Clarkson’s Farm star – who runs a 1,000 acre Diddly Squat farm in Chipping Norton, Oxon – said golf courses were just ‘emerald green splodges’ with ‘some sandpits’. He said he was worried that Sir Keir Starmer – if he becomes the next PM – would consider banning game shooting, or at least try to impose more restrictions on it.
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Jezza, 63, said: “Shooting is such an easy target for Sir Starmer and I feel sure he will raise the issue, much like Mr Blair did with fox hunting, whenever he needs to distract the electorate from an awkward moment.
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
“You mark my words: if the economy tanks or he misses an immigration target…he’ll pop up out of nowhere and say ‘I think we need to stop people from shooting pheasants’.”
The TV star said that would immediately see protestors and environmentalists take to the streets to call for shooting to be stopped, but said they would do better if they called for golf courses to be banned.
He said: “Golf is worse for the environment.
“To run a shoot you need to be at one with nature; you need to nurture it and allow it to do its thing. And you need woods and hedges and crops where not just the pheasants but also songbirds can hide and thrive.
(Image: itsclarksonsfarm)
“Golf courses, on the other hand, are just filled with emerald green splodges, some sandpits and people who think Donald Trump is a snappy dresser.
“So if I wanted to ban something to help the environment, I’d go after golf.”
He said that game shooting provided 74,000 full-time jobs across the UK, and said he had the occasional shoot on his farm – but that since Brexit the cost of pheasant chicks rocketed fourfold from £2 to £8.
He said: “Pheasant chicks (poults) are often imported from France and used to cost a couple of quid.
(Image: BBC)
“But then we left the EU, legislation arrived, Covid messed around with supply and the price shot up in some places to £8.
“Factor in the cost of rearing, feeding and good husbandry and the cost of shooting a single bird rocketed up to about £45.
“Times that by 100 birds on my shoot and it’s £4,500 a day. So five shooting days a year would cost £22,500. You could run a private jet for that.”
Clarkson said he recently held a clay shooting bash – and that it was a great success.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
