Last week, a yearling filly sold at auction for an astonishing five million guineas. Unraced and unnamed, the daughter of super-sire Galileo set a new world record for her sex after some furious bidding at Tattersalls in Newmarket. How the ultra-rich spend their money is up to them and we wish her new owner luck.

What is less satisfactory is when the poor are taxed to make the rich wealthier, as is happening with wind farms. The announcement this week that there has been a further surge in the number of wind farms licensed to be built in 2013 has more to do with already wealthy landlords chasing lucrative subsidies-paid for by the Green taxes on everyone’s energy bills-than a sensible approach to an energy solution.

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This is the time of year of the harvest festival, a celebration of Nature’s plenty. The food brought into the churches is distributed to the needy. The farmers have had a fine year and their drilling of winter wheat has already turned the ploughed fields green. The bracken is turning brown and the acorns are raining down from the oaks. Bonfires are being built-we should throw the legislation permitting these new wind farms on top of them.

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