NFU deputy president Stuart Roberts is “angry, sad and mystified” that Boris Johnson has such a “lack of comprehension about how supply chains work.”

His views are shared by farmers across the UK.

Nothing more clearly demonstrated how out of touch the Prime Minister is than his recent performance on The Andrew Marr Show – a show broadcast only days before he had them in hysterics at his Party Conference, telling so many jokes I thought I’d tuned into Saturday Night at The Apollo.

When asked by Marr about the imminent cull of up to 120,000 pigs – the largest cull in British history – Johnson replied, “I hate to break it to you, Andrew, but I’m afraid our food processing industry does involve killing a lot of animals, that is the reality. Your viewers need to understand that.”

Marr didn’t swallow his nonsense – pointing out this pork would not end on supermarket shelves but be incinerated – and that up to £24 million in farmer’s wages would go up in smoke.

After his ignorance was exposed – despite months of warnings from the NFU – Johnson tried to wave off the stench of incinerating pigs as an inevitable part of his post-Brexit masterplan.

As is a shortage of fuel, lorry drivers, fruit-pickers, nurses, care-workers, vets and butchers, etc.

Keen to prove that despite being shaky on supply chains, he could still recall some Greek, Johnson added - If I may say so, the great hecatomb of pigs that you describe has not yet taken place.

Let’s hope it doesn’t. A hecatomb - a sacrifice of up to 100 animals – was thought by early men a cost worth bearing in order to placate Greek gods.

Marr should have asked the PM to comment on the possibility that UK farmers may be required to sacrifice not one but 1,200 hecatombs on the altar of his Government’s incompetence.

‘Crisis? What crisis?’

These three words helped bring down Callaghan’s government in 1979.

Johnson seems equally relaxed or indifferent about the difficulties so many of his fellow citizens are facing.

Anthony Hentschel

Nailsworth