Robin Page (born May 1943) is an English

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

, conservationist and political activist, who has worked as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and television presenter. Page farms in

Barton, Cambridgeshire Barton is a village and civil parish in the South Cambridgeshire district of Cambridgeshire, England. It is about south-west of Cambridge, near junction 12 of the M11 motorway. History The Roman road Akeman Street may have passed through ...

where he was born, and his work focuses on rural affairs.

Countryside Restoration Trust

Page founded the CRT in 1993 with the late artist and conservationist, Gordon Beningfield. It promotes a "living" countryside including wildlife-friendly farming. By 2021, when Page's Executive Chairmanship of the CRT ended, it had developed into a nationwide chain of 18 small farms involved with principles of conservation of land, wildlife and farming. As at 2021 Page continues to serve as a trustee. Recent projects involving the CRT include an attempt in 2020 to buy a farm in the Lake District. This would have been a community-based project involving the Friends of the Lake District and the author and farmer James Rebanks.

Media work

Print

Page is the author of numerous books, such as ''The Wildlife of the Royal Estates'', 1984 (foreword by the Duke of Edinburgh) and ''The Hunting Gene'', 2000 (foreword by

Robin Hanbury-Tenison Airling Robin Hanbury-Tenison (born 7 May 1936) is an explorer based in Cornwall. He is President of the charity Survival International and was previously Chief Executive of The Countryside Alliance. Early life and education The youngest of fiv ...

). These are mainly published by Bird's Farm Books based in Barton. Until 2016 he wrote a long-running column for the '' Daily Telegraph''. His views about conservation are sometimes controversial, for example his call for blanket protection to be removed from birds of prey, on the premise that their population is unnaturally high, causing excessive destruction of many songbirds and other prey. According to BBC wildlife presenter

Chris Packham Christopher Gary Packham CBE (born 4 May 1961) is an English naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author, best known for his television work including the CBBC children's nature series '' The Really Wild Show'' from 1986 ...

, a 2015 article by Page about raptors was "an idiotic, ill informed rant" by someone with "no qualified understanding of even basic ecology".

TV

In the 1990s he presented ''

One Man and His Dog ''One Man and His Dog'' is a BBC television series in the United Kingdom featuring sheepdog trials, originally presented by Phil Drabble, with commentary by Eric Halsall and, later, by Ray Ollerenshaw. It was first aired on 17 February 1976 an ...

'', a television show featuring

sheepdog trial A sheepdog trial (also herding event, stock dog trial or simply dog trial) — is a competition or test for working abilities of herding breeds dogs. It is a type of dog sport that emerged in the 1860s in New Zealand. By the 1870s regular trials ...

Political career

Page was elected to

South Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire is a local government district of Cambridgeshire, England, with a population of 162,119 at the 2021 census. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Chesterton Rural District and South Cambridgeshire Rural District. ...

District Council as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

in 1972, holding his seat until he resigned in 2006. He stood as the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

candidate in

Bethnal Green and Bow Bethnal Green and Bow is a constituency in Greater London, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party. Boundaries Since the 2014 boundary changes, the constituency has contained the ...

at the 1979 general election, finishing in third place. He stood as a Eurosceptic, campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, in

for the

Referendum Party The Referendum Party was a Eurosceptic, single-issue political party that was active in the United Kingdom from 1994 to 1997. The party's sole objective was for a referendum to be held on the nature of the UK's membership of the European Union ...

in the 1997 general election, then joined the

UK Independence Party The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...

(UKIP), standing in the Winchester by-election later the same year, and again in South Cambridgeshire at the 2005 general election. Page resigned from UKIP after not being selected as a party candidate for the East of England constituency at the 2009 European Elections, Page claimed that the party's MEPs were part of a "gravy train", and that leader

Nigel Farage Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021) from 2 ...

dominated the party excessively. He joined the UK First Party, and was the lead candidate on their list in the East of England. The UK First Party disbanded in 2010 and in the 2010 United Kingdom general election he stood for a third time in South Cambridgeshire, as an independent.

Allegations of racism

In 2002, Page was arrested, based upon false allegations of

inciting racial hatred Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred is a crime under the laws of several countries. Australia In Australia, the Racial Hatred Act 1995 amends the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, inserting Part IIA – Offensive Behaviour Because of Race, Colour ...

in a speech he gave at a fair in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, but was later released as police were of the opinion that no crime had been committed. Page claimed that he was framed by

Gloucestershire Police Gloucestershire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the non-metropolitan county of Gloucestershire in England. The force formerly covered the area of South Gloucestershire, however this was transformed to the ...

. In 2008 Gloucestershire Police made a four-figure payment to Page for his wrongful arrest, conceding and compensating him for his complaint. In 2016 Page again attracted controversy by making remarks (which he dismissed as a joke) about deceiving immigrants into taking contraceptive drugs.

Elections contested

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Page, Robin 1943 births Living people English farmers English television presenters English male journalists Independent politicians in England People from South Cambridgeshire District Referendum Party politicians UK Independence Party parliamentary candidates Conservative Party (UK) parliamentary candidates Councillors in Cambridgeshire Independent councillors in the United Kingdom