It wasn’t a good weekend for British farming. Leaked emails from Dr Tim Leunig, the economic advisor to the Chancellor, argued that, as agriculture accounts for a mere 1 per cent of the British economy, our farming industry is an unnecessary irrelevance. Instead, Dr Leunig suggested, we should follow the example of Singapore, which is “rich without having its own agricultural sector”.

These comments are not only shocking and deflating for farmers, they are confirmation of what many of us have long suspected – that Westminster mandarins inhabit a very different world from the rest of us. Comparing Britain to Singapore? The latter is an economy based on finance, technology and knowledge, one of the most stable in the world, with high salaries and a completely different climate from Britain, not suited to food production. Is that seriously the sort of future we’re contemplating for the Peak District, the Lake District and active agriculture in Britain?

I appreciate that sometimes in government it is useful to have people willing to explore unorthodox ideas, but that’s very different from spouting pie-in-the-sky nonsense.

Taking a broader view of rural life shows just what would be lost. Living on a typical small family farm, as I do, there’s never a quiet day. Among the constant stream of callers might be the foot-trimming man, ready to do a vital job with livestock. The corn merchant will most days drop off a delivery. We’re quite likely to have the vet, either doing the mandatory TB check or coming to tend to unwell animals. The man with the straw visits several times in the winter, to make sure we can comfortably bed down the cows.