General Discussion
Right up your street I should imaginehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2434182/Now-work-benefits-Ministers-unveil-tough-crackdown-payments-jobless.html
What an excellent idea. People struggling to find work can learn skills, get experience, improve their CV and job prospects. All for it.
well done @Brazilnut. 
Thought you might be, you would agree with anything that idiot spouts. Great for employers no need to pay wages now just get everybody from the dole queue, so infact the Government will employ us all 
Don't you see what the ruling elite (ie the super rich) are trying to do? It's called divide and rule. While good honest working class people like us are arguing amongst ourselves about a popular misconcepted myth which was conceived by them (the myth of millions of layabouts in the UK) they are actually deflecting attention away from themselves. I'm not denying there are people on long term benefits who have no intention of working but the money they're taking from the British economy pales into insignificance compared to the super rich who are cheating the British economy out of £70billion a year through tax evasion. Us taxpayers are also subsidising them aren't we? Shouldn't society be criticising them a lot more, seeing as they're costing the country a lot more? So sad that nowadays, people who have fallen on hard times, and paid into the system for so long, and need the state's short term help are reluctant to apply for benefits because of the stigma that's attached to it. Then again...that's what "they" want, isn't it? Our forefathers will be turning in their graves! Time to rise up working class brothers and sisters of this great nation. Time for change!
Our forefathers didn't know the luxury of the welfare state, it certainly didn't exist when my parents were born, what rubbish you talk at times. Your language is like something out of a 1960s Labour Party conference, those times have gone, get used to it.
Cant think anyone would want to go back to strikes every day and black outs.
End of the day its all about 'envy'.
Some info on land ownership in Britain.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328270/A-Britain-STILL-belongs-aristocracy.html
(and yes I know that's from the Daily Mail but it is precisely because the DM is tory supporting that I have posted this link . I mean, you might expect The Mirror to carry such a story but the Daily Mail?!)
very interesting Lynne, and to the rest who have posted on here you have conveniently chosen to ignore what I was really getting at in my posting above , why am I not surprised 
Are we supposed to assume that all landowners are super-rich tax evaders? Not quite sure of the point of posting that DM article.
http://metro.co.uk/2013/09/25/taxpayers-foot-legal-bill-as-osborne-takes-on-europe-over-bankers-bonuses-4113431/ Beggars belief!!!! when even employees cannot get Legal Aid for unfair dismissal anymore, and this leech is fighting to ensure the parasites( that caused a lot of our problems ) dont get their bonuses capped. And you all think benefit claimants are taking your money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry burnside my fav exclamation marks
That DM article is a perfect example of the inequality of wealth in this country. And I can very easily post other links on here that show that by having land, wealthy landowners can further increase their wealth by getting various subsidies (paid for by the taxpayer one way or the other). And then of course there are the perfectly legal ways they have of avoiding paying tax - like setting up trusts for example. They don't do that? Course they do!
I don't see anything wrong in people trying to save paying tax by legal means, why shouldn't they when such schemes exist? I do it myself by investing savings in an ISA. You seem to have a real problem with people having a bit of money to their name, it must be your Socialist leanings.
I am a socialist so was my father and he was a very wealthy man but at the end of each year he shared his profits with the folk who worked for him. In fact he always had a meeting and went through the accounts and planned the following year with the men who worked for him. The profits where always divided depending on years service and at the end of each day he played the Red Flag if every employer ran his workforce like my father the world would be a better place.
@burnside, thats fine that you look at it like that, and you do not mind subsidising them thru your taxes, so why the bloody hell keep on about your taxes keeping people on benefits and that they should be penalised. Iaccept that there are a small minority that do take the proverbial but that does not mean everybody should suffer, nor in the way this gov is going about it, hitting people when they are already down and driving them to suicide, and yes my friend I posted about the other day did try to kill herself. I pay basic rate on everything I earn over 3000 because of my pension , I pay tax on everything I purchase, I claim no HB or Council Tax relief but I do not look down on people who are forced into that position. What does get me is these super rich politicians who have no idea what the normal working class person is going through, and sit in their ivory towers with a "im alright jack" attitude, the same as a few posters on here who could do with a lesson in humility. Deep down inside I am an old fashioned Socialist but im not sure the Labour Party at present is.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=447033565415510&set=a.331819583603576.75793.331814960270705&type=1&theater My links are not quite as dignified as Lynnes
If you hate this country so much B....is it time to move to a different one? ..plenty want to move here!
If a person's wealth has been obtained by legal means, and taxes duly paid, then I really don't see what business it is of yours.
Where have I posted comments complaining about my taxes keeping people on benefits and that they should be penalised? Yet again you are spouting rubbish.
It's as much my business as it is anyone else's. There's plenty poking their noses into the wealth (or, more to the point, lack of wealth) of thousands if not millions of others in this country right now. 'Bout time those at the bottom of the pile started to question the wealth and power of those at the top. That it is deemed to be legal does not necessarily make it morally right and certainly not when we have so many in poverty in this country.
Good for your father Leatash.
So after you have rather arrogantly poked your nose into somebody else's financial affairs, and deemed their wealth is immoral, what then? Take it away from them? Have you thought this through? I'd love to know.
As I said, there's plenty poking their noses into the the financial affairs of those lower down in society and as far as I am concerned what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Nothing to do with arrogance. Everything to do with a more equitable and fair society.
Large landowners with tenant farmers for example. Howsabout a variation on the Right to Buy? Large landowners (large to be defined I grant you but let's start with the type of landowners shown in the link I gave in an earlier post) having to offer their tenant farmers the Right to Buy their farms? At a discount of course. The amount of discount to be determined by how long the farmer/the farmer's family has been a tenant. Perhaps the government could step in with a Help to Buy scheme for those tenant farmers interested in taking up the offer?
I own some property (mortgaged) that I don't live in and rent out. I also own about 3 acres of land separate to the place where I live. I have no pension other than a small (£250p.m.) Service Pension and a War Pension of about (£120 p.m). The property is my pension. Seeing as I'll never be able to retire I thought it prudent to take a mortgage out on a piece of land where I might be able to grow some veg etc and if I can make some money out of it (hasn't happened yet!) all well and good. Am I a Capitalist? Do you want to strip me of these assets?
You are being very generous with other people's property, what if the landowner doesn't wish to sell the farm to the tenant, would your socialist principles kick-in and the land is grabbed anyway?
Next you'll be saying landlords have to sell their houses to the tenants at a discount. I've worked very hard & still do why should I be forced to give it away or a part of it. I pay whatever tax is due, I don't tell any lie's and although we don't pay a huge amount of tax annually 2 years ago we paid £90k capital gains tax, we pay stamp duty everytime we buy something. In fact the tax I have paid for the last 5 years equates to an employee earning £88,000 a year that doesn't include stamp duty. We just want to provide for our family the best we can, take that away from us and we would move country. All people have the same oppurtunity they can all achieve the same as the person next door, I hear too often, I 'll do any job, "I know of a cleaning job going" oh I ain't doing that. so many people sit in front of the telly instead of further education or tending the veg plot or making something. A little less telly would be a little less running costs a bit more excercise, a bit of money saved, all those bits add up soon you could buy your own piece of land, (only to be told you have to sell it to someone else for less) :-(
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/forced-labour-conservative-party-force-2322499 is there anybody in this Gov that can see what this is going to do in reality 
,Im going to live in fear now that I might lose my employment in favour of somebody unemployed who my employers are not going to have to pay. For my employment Ive had to have CRB checks , Basic Food Hygiene Cretificate, Health and Safety Training, C.O.S.S.H Training, is this all going to be dismissed in this ill thought out plan
Did you miss the word 'large' that I used in my example? Or do you regard yourselves as large landowners? (and by large I mean having lots of land as opposed to being adipose tissue challenged). Good for you that you have land if that is what you wanted and were able to buy. Don't have a problem with people owning land if that is what they want to do. I do however have a problem with l a r g e landowners who not only don't sell land but accumulate more and more. Why not have a limit on how much land any one person can own?
"All people have the same opportunity, they can achieve the same as the person next door"
No. They. Can. Not.
You'll be telling me next that we are all born equal.
Lynne ..you could say ...why not have a limit to so many cars people can own?
So many people have 3 to 4 to a house...things cant be that bad! So much envy now.
Why not have a limit on the number of cars per household?. We could certainly debate that (although on a separate thread perhaps?)There are, after all, limits on other things like how much any one individual can put in an ISA over any 12 month period. Why not have limits on other things as well?
To return to the land issue. I'm trying to work out why the tories amongst you are seemingly defending what is effectively a land owning monopoly. According to that Daily Mail link I posted above 0.6% of the population owns 50% of rural land. I thought you hated monopolies. Winston Churchill made a speech about landowners - granted the speech was made in 1909 but it still makes for an interesting and, I think, relevant read. I'll find it and post it.
The Mother of all Monopolies
Winston S. Churchill
[From a Speech Delivered at King's Theatre in Edinburgh on 17 July 1909]
It is quite true that land monopoly is not the only monopoly which exists, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies - it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly. It is quite true that unearned increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit which individuals are able to secure; but it is the principal form of unearned increment which is derived from processes which are not merely not beneficial, but which are positively detrimental to the general public.
Land, which is a necessity of human existence, which is the original source of all wealth, which is strictly limited in extent, which is fixed in geographical position. Land, I say, differs from all other forms of property in these primary and fundamental conditions.
Nothing is more amusing than to watch the efforts of our monopolist opponents to prove that other forms of property and increment are exactly the same and are similar hl all respects to the unearned increment in land.
Misleading and False Analogies
They talk to us of the increased profits of a doctor or a lawyer from the growth of population in the towns in which they live. They talk to us of the profits of a railway through a greater degree of wealth and activity in the districts through which it runs. They tell us of the profits which are derived from a rise in stocks and shares, and even of those which are sometimes derived from the sale of pictures and works of art, and they ask us - as if it were the only complaint: "Ought not all these other forms to be taxed, too?"
But see how misleading and false all these analogies are. The windfalls which people with artistic gifts are able from time to time to derive from the sale of a picture - from a Vandyke or a Holbein - may here and there be very considerable. But pictures do not get in anybody's way. They do not lay a toll on anybody's labour; they do not touch enterprise and production at any point; they do not affect any of those creative processes upon which the material well-being of millions depends.
Rewards for Service
If a rise in stocks and shares confers profits on the fortunate holders far beyond what they expected or indeed deserved, nevertheless that profit has not been reaped by withholding from the community the land which it needs, but, on the contrary, apart from mere gambling, it has been reaped by supplying industry with the capital without which it could not be carried on.
If the railway makes greater profits, it is usually because it carries more goods and more passengers. If a doctor or a lawyer enjoys a better practice, it is because the doctor attends more patients and more exacting patients, and because the lawyer pleads more suits in the courts and more important suits.
At every stage the doctor or the lawyer is giving service in return for his fees, and if the service is too poor or the fees are too high other doctors and other lawyers can come freely into competition. There is constant service, there is constant competition; there is no monopoly, there is no injury to the public interest, there is no impediment to the general progress.
Fancy comparing these healthy processes with the enrichment which comes to the landlord who happens to own a plot of land on the outskirts or at the centre of one of our great cities, who watches the busy population around him making the city larger, richer, more convenient, more famous every day, and all the while sits still and does nothing.
Enrichment Without Service
Roads are made, streets are made, railway services are improved, electric light turns night into day, electric trams glide swiftly to and fro, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains - and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and cost of other people. Many of the most important are effected at the cost of the municipality and of the ratepayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is sensibly enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare; he contributes nothing even to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.
If the land were occupied by shops or by dwellings, the municipality at least would secure the rates upon them in aid of the general fund, but the land may be unoccupied, undeveloped, it may be what is called "ripening" - ripening at the expense of the whole city, of the whole country for the unearned increment of its owner. Roads perhaps have to be diverted to avoid this forbidden area. The merchant going to his office, the artisan going to his work, have to make a detour or pay a tram fare to avoid it. The citizens are losing their chance of developing the land, the city is losing its rates, the State is losing its taxes which would have accrued if the natural development had taken place, and that share has to be replaced at the expense of the other ratepayers and taxpayers; and the nation as a whole is losing in the competition of the world - the hard and growing competition of the world - both in time and money.
And all the while the land monopolist has only to sit still and watch complacently his property multiplying in value, sometimes manifold, without either effort or contribution on his part. And that is justice!
Monopoly is the Keynote
But let us follow the process a little further. The population of the city grows, and grows still larger year by year, the congestion in the poorer quarters becomes acute, rents and rates rises hand in hand, and thousands of families are crowded into one-roomed tenements. There are 120,000 persons living in one-roomed tenements in Glasgow alone at the present time. At last the land becomes ripe for sale -that means that the price is too tempting to be resisted any longer. And then, and not till then, it is sold by the yard or by the inch at 10 times, or 20 times, or even 50 times its agricultural value, on which alone hitherto it has been rated for the public service.
The greater the population around the land, the greater the injury which they have sustained by its protracted denial, the more inconvenience which has been caused to everybody, the more serious the loss in economic strength and activity, the larger will be the profit of the landlord when the sale is finally accomplished. In fact, you may say that the unearned increment on the land is on all fours with the profit gathered by one of those American speculators who engineer a corner in corn, or meat, or cotton, or some other vital commodity, and that the unearned increment in land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done. It is monopoly which is the keynote, and where monopoly prevails the greater the injury to society the greater the reward to the monopolist will be.
Land Monopoly Hampers Industry
See how this evil process strikes at every form of industrial activity. The municipality, wishing for broader streets, better houses, more healthy, decent, scientifically planned towns, is made to pay, and is made to pay in exact proportion, or to a very great extent in proportion, as it has exerted itself in the past to make improvements. The more it has improved the town the more it has increased the land value, and the more it will have to pay for any land it may wish to acquire.
The manufacturer proposing to start a new industry, proposing to erect a great factory offering employment to thousands of hands, is made to pay such a price for his land that the purchase price hangs round the neck of his whole business, hampering his competitive power in every market, clogging him far more than any foreign tariff in his export competition, and the land values strike down through the profits of the manufacturer on to the wages of the workman. The railway company wishing to build a new line finds that the price of land which yesterday was only rated at its agricultural value has risen to a prohibitive figure the moment it was known that the new line was projected, and either the railway is not built, or, if it is, is built only on terms which largely transfer to the landowner the profits which are due to the shareholders and the advantages which should have accrued to the travelling public.
It does not matter where you look or what examples you select, you will see that every form of enterprise, every step in material progress, is only undertaken after the land monopolist has skimmed the cream off for himself. And everywhere today the man or the public body that wishes to put land to its highest use is forced to pay a preliminary fine in land values to the man who is putting it to an inferior use, and in some cases to no use at all. All comes back to the land value, and its owner for the time being is able to levy his toll upon all other forms of wealth and upon every form of industry.
The Error of Public Tollways
A portion, in some cases the whole, of every benefit which is laboriously acquired by the community is represented in the land value, and finds its way automatically into the landlord's pocket. If there is a rise in wages, rents are able to move forward, because the workers can afford to pay a little more. If the opening of a new railway or a new tramway, or the institution of an improved service of workmen's trains, or a lowering of fares, or a new invention, or any other public convenience affords a benefit to the workers in any particular district, it becomes easier for them to live, and therefore the landlord and the ground landlord, one on top of the other, are able to charge them more for the privilege of living there.
Some years ago in London there was a toll-bar on a bridge across the Thames, and all the working people who lived on the south side of the river had to pay a daily toll of one penny for going and returning from their work. The spectacle of these poor people thus mulcted of so large a proportion of their earnings appealed to the public conscience; an agitation was set on foot, municipal authorities were roused, and at the cost of the ratepayers the bridge was freed and the toll removed. All those people who used the bridge were saved 6d. a week. Within a very short period from that time the rents on the south side of the river were found to have advanced by about 6d. a week, or the amount of the toll which had been remitted.
Neutralising Philanthropy
And a friend of mine was telling me the other day that, in the parish of Southwark, about 350 pounds a year, roughly speaking, was given away in doles of bread by charitable people in connection with one of the churches, and, as a consequence of this, the competition for small houses, but more particularly for single-roomed tenements, is, we are told, so great that rents are considerably higher than in the neighbouring district.
All goes back to the land, and the landowner, who, in many cases, in most cases, is a worthy person utterly unconscious of the character of the methods by which he is enriched, is enabled with resistless strength to absorb to himself a share of almost every public and every private benefit however important or however pitiful those benefits may be.
Let Us Alter the Law
I hope you will understand that, when I speak of the land monopolist, I am dealing more with the process than with the individual landowner. I have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. I do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land is morally a worse man than anyone else who gathers his profit where he finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. It is not the individual I attack, it is the system. It is not the man who is bad, it is the law which is bad. It is not the man who is blameworthy for doing what the law allows and what other men do, it is the State which would be blameworthy were it not to endeavour to reform the law and correct the practice. We do not want to punish the landlord. We want to alter the law.
Take the case to which I have already referred, of the man who keeps a large plot in or near a growing town idle for years, while it is "ripening" - that is to say, while it is rising in price through the exertions of the surrounding community and the need of that community for more room to live. Take that case. I daresay you have formed your own opinion upon it. Mr. Balfour, Lord Lansdowne, and the Conservative Party generally, think that that is an admirable arrangement. They speak of the profits of the land monopolist, as if they were the fruits of thrift and industry and a pleasing example for the poorer classes to imitate.
The Dog in the Manger
We do not take that view of the process. We think it is a dog-in-the-manger game. We see the evil, we see the imposture upon the public, and we see the consequences in crowded slums, in hampered commerce, in distorted or restricted development, and in congested centres of population, and we say here and now to the land monopolist who is holding up his land - and the pity is it was not said before - you shall judge for yourselves whether it is a fair offer or not-we say to the land monopolist - "This property of yours might be put to immediate use with general advantage. It is at this minute saleable in the market at 10 times the value at which it is rated. If you choose to keep it idle in the expectation of still further unearned increment then at least you shall be taxed at the true selling value in the meanwhile."
Free Trade - Free Land!
Every nation in the world has its own way of doing things, its own successes and its own failures. All over Europe we see systems of land tenure which economically socially, and politically are far superior to ours; but the benefits that those countries derive from their improved land systems are largely swept away, or at any rate neutralised, by grinding tariffs on the necessaries of life and the materials of manufacture.
In this country we have long enjoyed the blessings of Free Trade and of untaxed bread and meat, but against these inestimable benefits we have the evils of an unreformed and vicious land system. ln no great country in the new world or the old have the working people yet secured the double advantage of Free Trade and Free Land together, by which I mean a commercial system and a land system from which, so far as possible, all forms of monopoly have been rigorously excluded.
An Hour of Tremendous Opportunity
Sixty years ago our system of national taxation was effectively reformed, and immense and undisputed advantages accrued therefrom to all classes, the richest as well as the poorest. The system of local taxation to-day is just as vicious and wasteful, just as great an impediment to enterprise and progress, just as harsh a burden upon the poor, as the thousand taxes and Corn Law sliding scales of the "hungry forties."
We are met in an hour of tremendous opportunity.
"You who shall liberate the land," said Mr. Cobden, "will do more for your country than we have done in the the liberation of its commerce
Typlical socialist dogma from Lynne there, the state has to stick its nose into all our affairs. If somebody wants to own more than one car then why not, you'll certainly get taxed to the eyeballs for pleasure. And trying to compare it with putting money into an ISA is just nonsense.
Of course the state pokes its nose into our affairs - all governments of every hue do.
Any thoughts on Winston Churchill's speech and the monopoly issue that I raised about large landowners?
Land ownership isn't high on my list of things to get steamed up about, in fact it's not even on the list. How does somebody owning land have a detrimental effect on your daily life?
@burneside - cost of housing (to buy and to rent) immediately comes to mind.
On a not unrelated issue. I've just been looking at some online info on Land Value Taxation - land owners especially might be interested to look that up.
Here's a link to start you off. http://www.landvaluetax.org/what-is-lvt/
And the thing is B'nut that even the tories (well some of 'em) think a land value tax a good idea 'n all!
Land tax stupid idea, won't work, grade 1 Agricultural rents for £50 an acre per year, grade 3 roadside will rent for £600 how do you manage such a system. limiting things, I think their should be a limit on how many children people can have if they are in receipt of benefits. I know a couple who are on benefits and always will be they currently have 8 kids from 6 months to 15 years they live in a £250k house @ £850 a month rent on the best estate in the area, they have 3 dogs a car and boat on the drive, social services are paying for one of the 4 garages to be converted into another bedroom @ £8000. They have enough money to do as they wish, 8 kids is a majic number apparently as you then get enhanced child benefits over £600 a month, you get special top up benefits and they can turn to social services for anything they just had a huge electric bill, due to the stress it may cause social paid it for them. They never need to work as they both need to be home to be able to parent such a large family. RANT OVER 
Lynne who would decide whats too much land ? Serious question how much is too much wealth ? Do people on here think that some local families maybe have too much ? is the thought of someone else having more and that being unfair, is this justified or is it envy ? CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE REPLIES TO THESE QUESTIONS
In the words of Cameroon "its only FAIR," that the hardworking people arenot the only ones paying to support the Country, its only Fair that these people who get subsidies and commit tax avoidance contribute as well. Its nothing to do with envy, I do not envy anybody for what they have, the example you gave above is few and far between, and its the example people love to give of people on benefits, I know several and noway do they get what you have purported, in fact Im glad Im not on benefits because I dont know how they manage
@Lynne - it amazes me that you can get so hot under the collar about people having, in your view, too much land, or too many cars or even too much money. and yet, you see nothing wrong in people having extra bedrooms and you defend their right to have the taxpayers of this country subsidising the additional room in their homes. total hypocrite aren't you!
Just pointing out the h u g e differences in wealth in this country and that land ownership is an important element in that. Churchill could see the impact and importance of land ownership over a hundred years ago. Have things changed then? And yes I know Churchill was a Liberal in 1909. Free market philosophy' n all that. Isn't that what we are about today ? That's why his speech, I think, is still relevant now. Still can't figure out how monopoly holding of land is seen as okay by Tories. Are some monopolies okay then and others aren't? Hypocrisy or what? And then of course there is the economic impact of land holding and how it can hold back the economy and impact on the cost of housing etc.
Re the bedroom tax. As I have pointed out before, it will prove to be a false economy. We need more homes, including smaller homes for people to move into. Which brings us back to the housing need question and the land holding issue again.
And where have I said anything about people having too many cars? Did you not see the ? It was a suggestion on my part that it could be a discussion for a thread.
Talk about getting hot under the collar...................
Oh, and on the issue of taxpayers in this country subsidising spare bedrooms. If that's not okay then I take it that you also disapprove of taxpayers subsidising those who own huge amounts of land. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2110261/Queens-Sandringham-estate-receives-7m-farming-subsidies-EU.html
and
It's been over a century since Churchill made that speech and we have had umpteen changes of government, some very left-wing, yet none have seen land ownership as an issue which needs to be addressed. I wonder why?
As for paying subsidies to land owners, we have our EU masters to thank for that arrangement, the obvious solution would be to withdraw from the union and then we'd be free to do as we please. I would be very comfortable with that situation.
Land subsidies - if this helps for example potato's in the uk currently fetch £265 a tonne average in holland £175, France £169, Belgium £162 without subsidies how much would those potato's be???? They have recently changed the subsidies and there are very few for bare land now the main subsidies are for land with crops, from 2014 landowners will have to prove they farm or they will lose their subsidy oh and it's only £85 an acre, you can get £60 an acre for planting trees but it doesn't last for ever but the trees do. We don't claim any subsidies as there's too much paperwork for the money we would get. Farming pigs & poultry get no subsidies, most farms only get their single farm payment per acre, all the set aside subsidies stopped in 05, It will be interesting to see whether next years review of land subsidies will mean payments go to farmers or land owners, this could be why the Aschome estate have just changed the farmer of their land, so I'm told Powderham, Ashcome & Mamhead all just rent their land out upto now. Some how we need to keep farmers farming otherwise we will be reliant on Europe. It's mad we import most of our veg, meat & fish we live by the sea we have good sized farms locally I'm goig to start a new thread.