We have an absolute moral obligation to steward the natural environment that we live in, and to ensure a good living for the people who look after the land.
In the 20th century farming pulled off a miracle of productivity, generating huge yields to feed our growing urban population.
Connectivity is key to a place like Wiltshire. Our market towns and villages, and our outlying farms and cottages, depend on decent transport and decent broadband.
I probably get more correspondence about potholes than any other subject.
The glory of Wiltshire is its antiquity, the beauty of its landscape and the old-fashioned charm of its villages and market towns. But as the ancient monuments and the settlements show, this tranquil landscape has been used by human beings - farmed, worshipped, lived in - for all these long years.
ChinaSir Henry Keswick - the quintessential taipan, chairman of Jardine Matheson, life-long Sinophile and deeply Conservative Englishman - died this month. He and his wife Tessa (who died last year) were good friends to me and to my Party here in East Wiltshire over many years.
