Tory Party Conference is over; thank goodness. It was a curiously, almost hysterically, upbeat week - curious, for my party has not been happy for some years. We usually have a leader that lots of people grumble about. This year we had four contenders for the role, and everyone was able to project all their hopes onto their favoured candidate. I am backing Robert Jenrick. In my view he has both a detailed vision of the changes our party and our country need, and the temperament, experience and skills to deliver them.
Back from Birmingham to Marlborough. Richard Oliver, Treasurer of the East Wiltshire Conservative Association and trustee of the Devizes and District Foodbank, hosts an annual meeting to discuss poverty in our area. It is generally attended by people who do not vote Conservative. But Councillor Jane Davies (Con) and I tried our best to speak up for Wiltshire Council’s efforts to support people in financial hardship, and the previous government’s record on helping people from welfare into employment. Suzanne Wigmore - the always impressive boss of Wiltshire Citizens Advice - explained the interconnected causes of poverty in our area, and the crucial role our broken housing market plays.
Round the back of an industrial estate in Pewsey is one of the UK’s most innovative defence companies, Modini. The brainchild of former military helicopter pilot, Nick Sharpe, Modini makes drones and missiles (‘one way effectors’, Nick calls them) of stupendous power, versatility and cheapness (see photo above). Here we are with one of them, shortly to be seen in the skies over Ukraine, flying east.
Baydon is the second highest parish in Wiltshire (after Buttermere), apparently, and the highest point of the M4, which roars alongside. Perhaps the topography explains the number of crashes which close the motorway and send its traffic through the village. In ancient times the main road from London to Wales passed through Baydon; it was never turnpiked, says Chandler, and was thus popular with Welsh drovers into the 19th century. Since the motorway came it has become popular again, with ratrunners zipping scenically from Swindon to Newbury. I met with a group of concerned villagers and the redoubtable Sarah Chidgey, chairman of the parish council, and brainstormed what we might do about the traffic; the speeding; the yummy mummies disrespectfully parking their 4x4s on the village road to drop their kids at the school (not my characterisation). I will look into all these issues and revert to Sarah on what we could try to do together.
Baydon church is a gem: Norman, with (says Pevsner) ‘chamfered piers and round arches’, and ‘quoins and base of oolite’ (says the informative pamphlet at the door). The back wall is gently subsiding into the graveyard, and is held up by scaffolding. The churchwardens (above) are planning a big effort to fund the restoration. They really don’t need Rachel Reeves whacking on VAT to church repairs, as reports suggest she is contemplating for her budget this month.
