Starmer to deploy UK warships to the Arctic following Trump’s Greenland threats

British warships are set to patrol the Arctic following Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland over security concerns, Sir Keir Starmer has announced.

Speaking to world leaders at the Munich Security Conference, the prime minister said the US, Canada and other Nato allies would join Britain in bolstering security across what is known as the High North.

Mr Trump has claimed Denmark, of which Greenland is a territory, does not do enough to defend the region, which is strategically important to the US, from threats by Russia and China.

During his address, Sir Keir also hit out at Mr Trump’s claims that he is unsure if other Nato allies would come to the US’s defence. He told him: “Be in no doubt, if called on, the UK would come to your aid today.”

He also warned that when it came to Russia, Europe had to be ready to “fight” if it came to it.

The conference is taking place as the world approaches the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine later this month.

Sir Keir told the conference: “I can announce today that the UK will deploy our carrier strike group to the North Atlantic and the High North this year, led by HMS Prince of Wales, operating alongside the US, Canada and other Nato allies in a powerful show of our commitment to Euro-Atlantic security.”

Earlier this year, European nations rallied to Denmark’s side amid the suggestion that the US could annex Greenland.

In a strong message to President Trump, Sir Keir also said the UK would honour the Nato commitment to defend its allies if called upon.

One of the alliance’s founding principles, Article 5, is that an attack on one Nato member is an attack on all. It has only been invoked once, after the 9/11 terror attacks in New York.

Sir Keir said: “I am proud that my party fought for Nato’s creation, what our then-foreign secretary Ernie Bevin called a spiritual union of the West.

“And we’ve shown our fidelity to that ideal, asserting each other’s sovereignty as we did on Greenland, and crucially, coming to each other’s aid under Article 5, we fought together in Afghanistan at terrible cost to many in my country and across many allied countries.

“So I say to all Nato members, our commitment to Article 5 is as profound now as ever, and be in no doubt, if called on, the UK would come to your aid today.”

In his speech, Sir Keir also outlined plans for Britain to move towards “deeper economic integration” with the European Union, aiming to “move closer to the single market” in various sectors. He said the current EU-UK “status quo is not fit for purpose”, acknowledging that such a shift would entail “trade-offs”.

After an attempt by the Scottish Labour leader to oust him from office, Sir Keir also said he “ended the week much stronger than I started it.”

His speech came less than an hour after an address by the US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who warned Europe that the US did not want to be caretakers of Western “decline”. Mr Rubio also criticised past errors by Western nations over the last four decades, while simultaneously appearing to try to improve strained relations between the US and Europe.

On Friday, he declined to attend a Ukraine meeting at the conference, even as allies reaffirmed their support for the war-torn nation.

US officials attributed his absence to scheduling conflicts, but European observers widely interpreted it as a potential indicator of the White House’s declining interest in involving them in efforts to resolve the conflict.

Gisele Pelicot ‘overwhelmed’ after personal letter of support from Queen

French rape survivor Gisele Pelicot has expressed being “overwhelmed” after receiving a personal letter of support from Queen Camilla, following her ex-husband’s conviction. The Queen, a long-time campaigner against domestic violence and sexual abuse, commended Ms Pelicot’s “extraordinary dignity and courage” in the correspondence.

Ms Pelicot’s former husband, Dominique Pelicot, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping her, and for allowing other men to assault her while she was unconscious. This horrific abuse spanned nearly a decade.

He had recruited other men in an online chatroom to rape her while she was unconscious; 47 of them were found guilty of rape, two found guilty of attempted rape and two guilty of sexual assault. They were jailed for a total of 428 years.

Extracts of her book, A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides, written with journalist Judith Perrignon, and published by French newspaper Le Monde, explain how her then-husband had been summoned by police after a supermarket security guard caught him secretly taking video up women’s skirts.

The 73-year-old bravely waived her right to anonymity, asserting that shame should fall upon her abusers, not herself. A trial in Avignon, concluding in December 2024, saw 50 men convicted of rape or sexual offences.

In her letter, Queen Camilla told Ms Pelicot: “I very much wanted to write to express my heartfelt admiration for the courage, grace and dignity with which you have faced the horrific crimes committed against you.”

Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Ms Pelicot described the letter as an “honour,” adding: “I was overwhelmed that the Queen could send me this letter. Although my words touched the whole world, I wasn’t expecting a letter from the Court of England. I felt moved and very honoured that she had become aware of what had happened to me. I am grateful to her.”

Queen Camilla has dedicated her royal charity work to supporting victims of sexual assault. Last year, she praised the “brilliant” efforts of health workers and staff at a specialist centre in Exeter, which she officially opened.

She previously championed the idea of washbags for those attacked, an initiative recently revived. In an ITV documentary, she vowed to “keep trying” to end domestic violence “until I am able to no more.”

Trump’s attack on the BBC is a harbinger of much worse to come

Let’s step a few years into the future. Elon Musk has bought The Times of London and is using it to pursue an entire stable of hobby horses. Lord Rothermere has unloaded his investment in the Telegraph to GB News co-owner, Sir Paul Marshall. The US asset manager Blackstone has been on a buying spree to own and strip out what’s left of the local newspaper industry. And Paramount CEO David Ellison is boasting to shareholders that his newly merged company, CBS-BBC, is outperforming expectations.

Far-fetched? Ok, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, bored of Manchester United, has snapped up the Times from Lachlan Murdoch, who has tired of owning newspapers. Jeff Bezos has rekindled his love affair with news, now that Trump is out of the picture, and has added the Telegraph to his media portfolio. 15m Brits are living in news deserts after the effective collapse of their local newspaper. And Mark Zuckerberg is eyeing up a stake in the newly privatised BBC.

In fact, you don’t have to stare into an imaginary future to understand how fragile and open to manipulation the news environment is in what we still like to think of as Western democracies.

Six American billionaires own or control much of the information space in the US – and virtually all of them have, in one way or another, buckled the knee in front of a vengeful US President who has simultaneously removed virtually all funding from public television and radio.

American elites are reasonably well-served, though less so now that CBS has veered towards Trump and the Washington Post has been gutted by the quixotic Bezos. But the non-elites make do with what they can scavenge from a tidal wave of social media, half-truths, deliberate lies, bias, rumours and AI slop.

Increasingly, Americans say they no longer know who or what to believe. That, in turn, leads to a calamitous cratering of trust in institutions and the democratic ideal itself. And it creates a petri dish for populism, polarisation, and evidence-free policy-making.

Now, there is no perfect formula for owning, funding, and curating news. The flaws in billionaire-ownership have been amply demonstrated with the second coming of Trump – but look no further than the variable quality of recent UK press barons; from Murdoch to Richard Desmond; from Robert Maxwell to Conrad Black; from Paul Marshall to the Barclay Brothers.

Shareholder ownership worked reasonably in an age of bountiful revenues and high margins. But as the advertising dried up, a widely-repeated death spiral took over: the remorseless cutting of newsrooms, the mindless chasing after traffic. More cuts, more decline. The result: ever-growing news deserts where citizens have little access to reliable information.

And then there is the public service model for news exemplified by the BBC. Yes, it has problems with independence, governance, and, just occasionally, journalistic rigour. But this is the one business model for universally-accessible news that provably works. It most effectively keeps the largest number of people well-informed at a reasonable cost. If it didn’t exist already, we’d be thinking of ways to invent it. Instead of which, we’re doing our best to discredit it, starve it and possibly abolish it.

Only this week, the outgoing Director General, Tim Davie, warned of another £500m-£600m in cuts to an organisation which has already seen its funding savaged by around 40 per cent in 15 years. Every ten years it has to plead for its Royal Charter to be renewed. Politicians on the right can’t wait to replace the universal licence fee with some form of voluntary subscription, which would further erode its income and lead to more cuts.

And then there’s the careless neglect of the World Service. The new MI6 chief, Blaise Metreweli, has warned that the UK is operating in a space between peace and war, with disinformation and propaganda contributing to a form of democracy-destroying chaos. The World Service (budget £300m) reaches more than 300m people in 43 languages each week. China reportedly spends more than $6bn on foreign language media expansion. And yet Davie warned this week that our World Service will run out of funding in just seven weeks.

And then consider the almost lip-smacking relish as the enemies of the BBC anticipate the $10bn libel battle with Donald Trump over one careless edit in a Panorama programme, which has also been in the news this week. In any rational world, it should not be difficult to choose between an overwhelmingly ethical British news organisation and a bullying, lying and corrupt US President. Yet here we are.

The Panorama programme has been portrayed – mostly by people who haven’t seen it – as a dishonest attempt by woke BBC journalists to discredit Trump. But much of the programme is in fact devoted to Trump supporters and tries to explain why they are drawn to him. The disputed 12-second clip on which $10bn supposedly hangs involves the botched splicing together of two separate sentences from Trump’s speech to the crowd on January 6 2024. Trump complains it makes it look as though he was inciting them to violence.

Well, the edit should certainly have been flagged by a white flash, or similar commonplace signal. But was the overall meaning of that 12 second segment misleading? In February 2022, the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell described the events of January 6 as “a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next.”

He added: “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day … A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags and screaming their loyalty to him.”

The same conclusion – that Trump helped cause the insurrection – was reached by other investigations and court proceedings. Hundreds of those accused of insurrection also testified in court filings that Trump’s repeated false statements and calls to action drove their behaviour that day. In other words, the Panorama programme, while professionally negligent, was overarchingly truthful.

So Trump’s suit against the BBC should be seen for what it is: an attempt to rewrite history. It’s also a bid to fill his own pockets, discredit the work of professional journalists and chill news organisations who seek to hold him to account. It’s really not hard to work out which side to back.

But some people still seem to think we’re better off in a world in which our information is mediated by craven billionaires. So there is a fight to not only save the BBC from its enemies, but also to put it on an assured, long-lasting footing with proper resourcing. Time is short.

Epstein ‘asked Andrew to fix him a meeting with Gaddafi’

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor spoke to a Libyan contact to help arrange a meeting for Jeffrey Epstein with Colonel Gaddafi in Tripoli, emails appear to show.

Messages within the latest release of the US Department of Justice’s Epstein files, from the autumn of 2010, show the disgraced financier contacted royal aide David Stern, saying “i want to go to tripoli lets organize with pa”.

The paedophile then sends another email to Mr Stern, writing: “people that have seen the father, have asked me if i want to meet him as he does not know where to put his money as opposed to what to do with it, currencies etc, I wondered if Pa should make the intro instead.”

The emails were first unearthed from the Epstein files by Channel 4 News, which reported “the father” refers to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to distinguish him from his well-known son Saif.

PA is believed to refer to the former prince, and this is how Mr Stern and Epstein appear to refer to him in multiple emails.

It appears Mr Stern then consulted Andrew, in a reply dated the following day, October 8 2010, writing: “He is thinking about the best approach and will discuss with me when I see him next on 17th Oct in Hong Kong (he is leaving today for Asia).”

The former Duke of York made an official visit to China in October 2010 and was the UK’s trade envoy at the time.

Later emails from “The Duke”, signed “A”, to Epstein’s address say “I will call you later this evening after I have had my chat with my Libyan contact to see what we can arrange for you in Tripoli.”

The same day, November 4 2010, “A” follows up to Epstein writing “Libya fixed. Call me whenever.”

The emails come as Thames Valley Police on Wednesday said it had held discussions with specialists from the Crown Prosecution Service about allegations that Andrew shared confidential reports from his role as the UK’s trade envoy with Epstein.

It appears the planned meeting did not go ahead, as Epstein did not end up flying to the Libyan capital, Channel 4 News reported.

Elsewhere, in emails from June and July 2010, “A” discussed a loan from Libya to Dubai with an investment banker called Terence Allen.

Mr Allen wrote: “In light of our conversation last week in relation to Dubai, is there anything I can do there for you??”.

“The Duke” replied: “Good question! I know that the only person who can make this decision is the Colonel himself. I will just ask our Libyan friend Tareq to see where he is on the subject, as he has the ear of the private office of Brother Leader.”

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been contacted for comment.

Ratcliffe should learn about his own club before spouting his nonsense

Given that he’s so willing to discuss his northern heritage when it suits, it’s likely that even someone as detached as Sir Jim Ratcliffe is aware of the acclaimed Jimmy McGovern TV drama, ‘Cracker’. He could do with a watch, if not.

In the first episode of the series most famous storyline, the ‘To Be A Somebody’ arc primarily about the social and psychological effects of Hillsborough, there’s a scene when the premises of a white nationalist group in Manchester are raided.

Amid the chaos, the character played by Christopher Eccleston, DCI David Billborough, spots a squad photo of the 1993-94 Manchester United squad on the wall. The detective accosts a bare-chested skinhead and starts gesturing to the players in the picture.

“Ince is black, Parker is black, Dublin is black, Schmeichel’s a Dane, Kanchelskis is a bloody Ukrainian and Cantona is French.”

Point made.

While this obviously isn’t to equate Ratcliffe’s clumsily ill-advised comments on immigration with fictional white nationalists, or imply he holds anything like such views, what does it say that the billionaire’s “disgusting” comments – to use the description of Chancellor Rachel Reeves – make it feel like he could do with a similar lecture about the team he co-owns?

Many of United’s own supporters have already made it clear, with multiple banners and memes about loving immigrants and hating billionaires. In one, Roy Keane and Eric Cantona happily stride above an image of Ratcliffe and the Glazers.

A football column like this obviously doesn’t need to re-state the basic errors that Ratcliffe made, or relay political arguments demonstrating the positives of immigration.

And if such a column is about the game itself, it is important to acknowledge that Ratcliffe’s views will be shared by many on the Old Trafford stands, despite much of the support’s inclusive leanings. His comments lamentably reflect the political era we’re in, where many of the very themes explored by ‘Cracker’ have only become more relevant.

The fact that many football fans will share Ratcliffe’s views only reflects the mass popularity of the sport, and how it cuts across more sectors of the population than any other pursuit.

That fact doesn’t, however, reflect football’s true power here and what is actually relevant about this.

Ratcliffe’s sentiments are actually the complete antithesis of what the game is really about: happiness, inclusivity, coming together.

A simplistic view, sure, but also an easily demonstrable truth.

This is what that episode of Cracker so archly illustrated.

It’s not just that there’s no sector of society as popular as football. It’s that there’s no sector as powerful in breaking down the same barriers.

This is a wider point that should be made as regards the billionaire’s comments in his profile as a notional football figure.

Leave aside the politics for a moment, and even the suspicions the United co-owner was possibly just seeking to cozy up to Reform sentiments.

What Ratcliffe said was actually anti-football.

There are countless examples you could use to illustrate why, starting with United’s own team and history. A migrant, Billy Whelan, died in the Munich air disaster commemorated last week.

Across town, Manchester City celebrated Germany’s Bert Trautmann as a club legend, just 11 years after the Second World War.

Come to now, and around 70 percent of the Premier League’s players are migrants and 79 percent of its managers.

The writer of this very column is a migrant, even if comments like Ratcliffe’s are no longer usually intended to mean the Irish given the common travel area.

And while none of this is to deny that serious racism or exclusionary views are challenges within the game and around it, the crucial point is that football itself serves to change minds.

Think about it in the most basic terms.

Many of us will have been in the company of supporters who hold even stronger views than Ratcliffe, only to express adoration for migrants in the same breath.

This gradually has a tangible positive effect, too.

In 2019, a Stanford University study showed that Mohammed Salah’s performances had reduced both Islamophobia and hate crime rates in Liverpool.

And they obviously did. That is how this works.

There are few sectors that encourage understanding and integration as much as football. The game has many problems, but this is one it actively works against in the most direct and persuasive way.

The one true global game serves to bring people together, even amid its many issues and the way it is often politically misused.

In the latter sense, the Ratcliffe controversy raises another crucial theme.

It is striking that United themselves felt the need to release a statement re-asserting the club’s inclusive ethos, and yet they find themselves co-owned and consequently represented by a man whose comments go against that. It has long been the same with the Glazers’ capitalist outlook, not least the manner their conference calls have discussed benefitting from dramatic Trumpian tax reforms, and how that so goes against the idea of a club founded by railway workers.

This is the world football has willingly moved into, without its fans having any say whatsoever.

It’s not hard to imagine some of football’s other billionaire owners privately expressing sympathy with Ratcliffe’s views, rolling their eyes with how the public just won’t get it. They move in a completely different world.

In another extreme, two other ownerships – those of Manchester City and Newcastle United – are key figures or funds from autocratic states who have migrant labour laws described as “modern slavery” and based on racial hierarchies.

All of this just forms another simple argument as to why such social institutions should be owned by supporters, not private or state interests. That is who they really represent, after all.

And yet this dismal situation perhaps has one positive when it comes to the ownership problem.

One of the main reasons that some billionaires get into football is fame, and social capital. They enjoy the increased profile, in ways that their other businesses just can’t afford. It also allows them to indulge what some industry figures describe as “billionaire idiot syndrome”, where individuals who are financially successful in one specific area become convinced they can easily translate this to anything else. As one example, when Ratcliffe made a pitch to buy Chelsea in 2022, those involved had the perception that he thought it would be easy because he’d run Ineos.

And duly, if Ratcliffe said this still just a petrochemicals owner, it likely wouldn’t have made anything like the same headlines.

Saying it as the co-owner of Manchester United, however, has just publicly exposed the poverty of thinking. A man frequently described as arrogant has been forced into a partial apology.

The game has that power, as well as so much more.

Ratcliffe could do a bit more to understand the sport he’s actually in, not least its inclusive nature.

He could start by trying to understand his own club.

Seven ways Amazon Business can make your budgets work harder in 2026

Late January marks the moment when the business year truly begins, making it the ideal time for companies of all sizes to maximise their early-year spending through smarter, business-focused purchasing with Amazon Business. Not surprisingly Amazon Business offers exceptional deals and special prices on everything your business needs during the Business Saving Event – until February 4. This is your last chance to save big on thousands of products, from office essentials to equipment upgrades, helping business leaders start the year organised, well-stocked, and ahead of the curve while freeing up valuable time to focus on serving their customers, but only until February 4.

Business-only rates and rapid delivery

Amazon Business is the online retailer’s platform for companies, retooling its familiar and intuitive shopping interface to create a business-focused experience. It helps teams stock up on core business essentials at the best possible price. Users benefit from business-only pricing available exclusively to registered Amazon Business customers, while Amazon’s rapid delivery times make it easy to plug last-minute gaps in supply.

Buying in bulk

Another way to stay fully stocked is to buy in bulk — and Amazon Business makes this flexible. You can purchase single items or pallet-sized orders of everything from stationery to cleaning supplies. Bulk buying improves budget efficiency, saves time, and comes with transparent guardrails for employees, as well as reorder lists for frequently purchased items.

Empowering teams

The beauty of Amazon’s business-specific platform is its familiar Amazon interface, making it easy for employees new to the procurement process to order essential supplies without involving business leaders. This not only saves time but empowers teams to work smarter and more efficiently.

Cost-aware purchasing and oversight

Consolidating your team into a single multi-user account gives you close oversight of spending and ensures budgets are allocated effectively. You can limit purchasing to approved items and guide team members toward approved suppliers, helping you stay on top of compliance goals.

Accessible spending data

Amazon Business accounts come with Amazon Business Analytics built in, providing instant visibility into your organisation’s purchase history. You can track spending, analyse trends, and create customised reports with intuitive visualisations, making it easier to identify savings opportunities and make data-driven buying decisions.

Simplified workflows

Amazon’s logistical expertise enables management of complex multi-address delivery preferences from a single centralised account. Delivery settings can be updated for multiple locations simultaneously, rather than individually. Combined with the platform’s unrivalled product range, this allows you to consolidate purchases across multiple suppliers into a single, streamlined procurement process, cutting down on administrative work.

Seamless integration

For companies using e-procurement and expense management systems such as Coupa, Concur Expense, or SAP Ariba, Amazon Business integrates seamlessly with over 300 platforms. VAT invoices are downloadable, and VAT-exclusive pricing is available, making it easier to incorporate spending data into decision-making processes.

Sign up for a free Amazon Business account to streamline your purchasing and take advantage of quantity discounts.

William wanted Andrew banished from royals ‘before rot set in’

Prince William demanded that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor be forced out of the royal family “before the rot set in”, following his disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019, a new biography has claimed. 

After further details of Andrew’s relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the Prince of Wales was said to have viewed the then-prince as a serious threat to the royal family’s survival.

The revelations are in an upcoming book about the Prince and Princess of Wales, written by the Mirror’s royal editor, Russell Myers.

A palace source in the book said: “The Prince of Wales was adamant the whole episode would never go away and, despite how others may have felt, there was absolutely no upside in Andrew being protected.” 

William had urged action from Charles and Queen Elizabeth, who were in favour of protecting him, which provoked a furious reaction from his father, who “put him in his place”, the book claims.

The new biography alleges Charles was “engaged in a full-scale fire fight”, and William feared the Epstein scandal would pose a threat to the royal family’s survival.  

A palace source in the book, said: “His view was crystal clear, Andrew shouldn’t be anywhere near the family under any circumstances, not by association, not at family functions, anywhere.

“Every single time there was a new revelation, which no one knew when it was coming or what the next one would be, it was a stain on all of the family.”

In a now infamous interview with BBC Newsnight in 2019, Andrew was asked about sexual abuse allegations made by the late Virginia Giuffre. Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing.

He claimed he had “no recollection” of ever meeting Ms Giuffre and said it was not possible he could have had sex with her in March 2001, as he was at a Pizza Express in Woking with his daughter.

Andrew also failed to apologise for his relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

The Prince and Princess of Wales publicly addressed the Epstein scandal for the first time this week, saying they have been “deeply concerned” over the ongoing revelations surrounding Andrew. 

Another source in the book said: “Once you understand the fact that everything that happens in the here and now, affects everything in the future, William’s future, it is very easy to put yourself in his shoes. 

“He never much liked his uncle and wanted him out of the picture immediately before the rot further set in. William’s view was that he [Andrew] got himself into the whole mess, so he should be left to his own devices to sort it out away from the family.”

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said the King had “profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s conduct.”

US Congress members have urged the King to “answer what he knew” about his brother’s ties to Epstein and compel him to testify in the US.

Andrew suffered a fall from grace following the release of Epstein files in October, which saw him stripped of all his titles, including the Duke of York.

In the latest tranche of documents released, Andrew is alleged to have shared confidential reports with Epstein that he had access to in his role as a UK trade envoy.

The Independent has contacted Buckingham Palace and Andrew’s representatives.

Clarkson’s Farm star rushed to hospital after chopping off finger with log splitter

Clarkson’s Farm star Harriet Cowan was rushed to hospital after chopping the end of her finger off in a gruesome accident.

Cowan, who featured on the Prime Video show last year, informed her followers of the news on Friday (13 February), revealing she had “a run in with a log splitter”.

The accident occurred on Monday (9 February) and doctors were able to reattach the finger.

“Sorry I’ve been quiet!” she wrote. “Been a crappy week. Had a run in with a log splitter, chopped the end of my finger off, but a quick surgery they stitched it back on!!”

Cowan was introduced in the latest season of the show, which follows the ups and downs at Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddy Squat farm, as the temporary replacement of farm manager Kaleb Cooper.

The former full-time nurse, who was forced to urge viewers to “be kind” following her appearance on the show, was recruited due to Cooper’s professional commitments elsewhere.

Fans of the show couldn’t help but notice Cooper appeared rather unimpressed with Cowan upon their introduction when he returned to the Oxfordshire location.

Jeremy Clarkson himself pointed out that Cooper needed to be kind to Cowan, telling him: “Right, now, that’s Harriet. Now be nice – behave.”

Cooper then stood watching Cowan in silence as she worked, sarcastically questioning her farming skills, with Clarkson chiding him for his attitude.

However, Cowan assured viewers that she gets on with Cooper – and said that they have even become friends away from the cameras.

During an appearance on BBC Derby, Cowan, who has a big following on TikTok, said: “Kaleb’s amazing. Me and him are so close now. He’s such a good farmer and we got on really well.”

She continued: “He’s another farmer to add to my phone list to ring. Everyone checks in to make sure everyone’s fine.”

Cowan won over audiences with her witty asides and impressive farming knowledge, and many have expressed hope that she will become a permanent team member at the Chipping Norton farm.

In episode one of the latest season, former Top Gear presenter Clarkson gives Cowan a tour of the farm. At one point, he identifies a Neolithic fort, which he explains is “4000 years old”, prompting Cowan to quip: “Nearly as old as you.” She even makes an attempt at trimming Clarkson’s unruly eyebrows.

Clarkson warms to Cowan as the episode goes on, calling her a “star” and praising her farming knowledge. “She’s brilliant,” he tells his farming contractor Charlie Ireland.

Cowan previously graduated from the University of Derby, where she studied nursing. She was named her town’s Young Farmers spokesperson and continues to use social media to highlight the realities of working on a farm.

She has been vocal during the farmers’ protests in response to Labour’s changes to inheritance tax, which has seen thousands of farmers gather in Westminster in recent months.

After the show launched her to fame, she quit her job as a full-time nurse – and she soon won a presenting role alongside comedian Jessica Knappett on Channel 4’s Tiny Farmers.