There was a time, not long ago, when 24 year-old farmhand Kaleb Cooper had only been to London once. He hated it and stayed on the coach. Someone who has never taken a train, plane or taxi – but knows the fields of rural Oxfordshire from memory – the breakout star of Clarkson’s Farm has become an unlikely celebrity: he has two million followers on Instagram, his own cider, a Sunday Times bestseller and another book due in the autumn. This week, he popped into Number 10 for a chinwag with the PM. For Rishi Sunak, it was a perfect photo op. Despite Jeremy Clarkson being such a polarising figure, the show is still a hit. Cooper was there to fly the flag for the agricultural sector – and seems to have succeeded. Sunak has since promised to make it easier for farmers to turn barns into farm shops, the precise difficulty faced by Clarkson in the series.
Photograph Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street