SO NOW we have another B-word to worry about! First Brexit, now Boris – and the two are inextricably entwined.

Hitherto almost disparaging towards Scotland, the new B-word has a few bridges to mend and wounds to salve before the blue-tinged farming industry north of the Border will get behind him. And that might be a big task.

First off, while it would be foolish to think that the £160m of convergence monies he has so publicly promised would be a top priority for our new Prime Minister, it will be interesting to see how this pans out – and there are many out there who think that it will never be addressed to anyone's satisfaction.

However, for a rejuvenated Tory party north of Hadrian's Wall, its resolution is quite crucial to any future hope it might have in denting the SNP armour much further. Indeed, a failure to address this much argued over piece of funding – which would be a God-send in difficult times for the industry – could very well be a touch paper for IndyRef2.

Indeed, it might prompt another B-word – there is a choice of two – as a pejorative when describing Prime Minister Johnson.

UK lamb is cheap

THE SHIFTING sands of world trading have conspired to create a scenario where the UK's sheepmeat price is now amongst the lowest in the world.

Having gone from a situation where exporting nations used the GB's high flying prices as a bulls-eye target for their produce, to one where we should be in the driving seat of sending shiploads of the stuff abroad. How is it, then, that prices are, at best, static?

New Zealand, long hailed as the talismanic source of cheap lamb and oft used by British and European supermarkets as a buffer to high UK prices, is now seeing some unprecedented prices being paid for sheep. This week, slaughter prices have been hitting NZ$9 per kg, or £4.84 per kg – on a 21kg carcase that's about £100. This week's GB average is 414p per kg and not even E and U quality lambs are making close to the Kiwi price.

As for lambs coming in next spring, the current price of a store lamb in New Zealand is the equivalent of £80-£90 per head. That kind of level would, surely, be an acceptable start to our domestic store lamb trade which will get into full swing in just a few weeks.

Someone, somewhere, is making a packet out of sheep – but it ain't the UK's primary producer.