Yorkshire doesn’t need lectures from eco-warriors, we already do our bit to recycle - Sarah Todd

Warming to this theme - don’t get me started on wood burning stoves - the saddler put a new zip in a favourite old handbag and it’s only now the penny has dropped that things normal Yorkshire folk do every day of the year are the epitome of being environmentally responsible.

Like The Husband dropping his “best shoes” (owned for over 30 years) off at the cobblers for resoling and his suit of the same vintage at the tailor’s to have the waistband altered. As a side note, it’s only going in one direction.

By late November last year our Prime Minister (wonder if his suits are British wool and whether his shoes get resoled?) had just returned from his 42nd foreign trip. No wonder he is referred to by some as ‘Never Here Keir’, with an airmiles total around the 200,000 mark.

Among his trips was the COP30 climate conference in Brazil. What an absolute joke all the private jets - estimated to be as many as 350 - landing at this event to reaffirm countries commitments to net zero were.

Just a few days earlier the Prince of Wales had landed in Rio de Janeiro for his Earthshot Prize. While his team defended the journey, saying he had flown in on a commercial flight, His Royal Highness wants to be careful; it would be awful if his undoubtedly good intentions left himself open to accusations of hypocrisy.

Talking of hypocrisy, many Labour MPs have given a masterclass in this art of pretending to have virtues, beliefs or feelings that they don’t actually possess. Or simply saying one thing while doing the opposite.

There was only one among their number, Markus Campbell-Savours, who had the bottle to vote against the family farm tax.

When the Government was forced into having another look at the inheritance tax proposals, so many were like rats on a sinking ship, hotfooting it to post on their social media about how they were delighted to be working with the countryside.

Not just those that abstained in this vote but, more infuriatingly, so many who had made their mark in favour of the tax.

If they genuinely now want to show support to farmers, they should have the guts to apologise for all the unnecessary stress and expense they put the farming industry through.

The hunting debate is a poisoned chalice, but yet another example of our urban-centric leaders looking at the countryside with the blinkers of envy and misunderstanding. There have doubtless been a few rotten apples among the hunting fraternity but that’s the same in all walks of life such as, let’s think, politicians. Or religion.

What is absolutely and utterly lost on our Government and all the keyboard warriors who know nowt but don’t let that stop them, is the role trail hunts play in the patchwork of rural life. People getting out of their homes and having a chat at meets.

They aren’t blood-thirsty toffs, but old chaps leaning on sticks and kids on scruffy ponies while mums and grandmas dish out sausage rolls.

They have all forgotten more about the countryside than the sort of people who keep cats locked up indoors their entire lives and have dogs mafting in coats on vegan diets.

An open mind is important but, thinking back to where we started with those homemade dusters, it’s rather rude for outsiders to be trying to tell people who understand the countryside how they should live their lives.

This country bumpkin wouldn’t poke her nose into urban issues such as transport or street crime.

Not unlike the classic fable of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, we are all different and there is lots to learn from each other. Balance is everything but the townification - is that a new word invented? - of rural life is a very real threat.

All these people who think they know better, perhaps the army of snow ploughing farmers should leave them to get on with it next time the roads need clearing. Mind you, with all the nanny state warnings, school and office closures this latest spell of wintry weather has brought…