Other times, matters of overwhelming importance in Parliament can somehow seem to have terribly little resonance or importance locally. Very few of the debates and votes in Parliament last week were topics of hot discussion at the highly enjoyable Malmesbury Mayoral ball which I attended on Friday night, nor in my surgery in Wootton Bassett on Saturday. Last Tuesday’s Planning Gain Supplement - Remaining Stages, for example, commanded few front page headlines. Yet of such stuff is the Parliamentary day consumed.

But just sometimes there is a neat overlap between the two. We remain of course overwhelmingly concerned about Iraq and Afghanistan; about the legality of the war in the first place, and about how to extract ourselves now from the mess in which Mr Blair looks likely to leave us. I rather welcomed the Government’s announcement that we were progressively to withdraw from Iraq now, and their brave attempt to map out some kind of route to do so. And I was by no means opposed to the announcement that we would simultaneously build up our forces in Afghanistan, where, if we do not defeat the Taliban, the security of the world will be endangered for generations to come. These are maters of key local as well as national interest. I enjoyed breakfast on Tuesday with the new Head of Strike Command, who filled me in on some of the details surrounding the destruction of the grounded Hercules from RAF Lyneham in Helmand Province a couple of weeks back. I remain very concerned about the safety and security of the Hercules crews who carry out such essential work in all of our theatres of war, as well as about the other military personnel from the area – from Hullavington, Colerne and Corsham, for example.

Then on Friday I attended a most interesting meeting with one constituent from Chippenham who lost an arm in the Bali bomb outrage, and who has some very constructive criticisms of the way in which he was handled by the British Embassy after it; and another from Stanton St Quintin, whose brother was recently tragically murdered in Thailand, and who again was deeply unhappy about the way in which Consular officials handled the whole matter. We have resolved to plan a campaign to highlight deficiencies in Consular handling of such matters – 9/11, the Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, terrorist outrages, all spring to mind. Something of a campaign follows. In other words, intensely local and personalised concerns can sometimes read directly across into much wider Parliamentary activity. And so it should be.

The very nature of our British Parliamentary democracy depends on it – a constituency MP raising local matters but thereby seeking to make the nation a better place overall. What a fascinating world it all is.

The finer detail of the relations between North Wilts District Council, North Wilts Leisure and the various consultants and others they have spent a fortune employing are too complex for as brief article like this. But what is for sure is that it is the District Council who have to take the rap for this disgraceful muddle. How can Liberal Democrat leader, Carol O’Gorman, who is said to have chaired an “emotional” meeting only a week ago after which the reprieve for Lime Kiln was announced have failed to know, or failed to foresee the insolvency of North Wilts leisure? A bit less “emotion,” fewer waving of the arms around and rolling of the eyes as it was described to me, and a more hard-headed approach to what is needed to keep the centres open may have something to recommend it, Carol.

Government – including local government – should not be about emotion, about spinning, about confusion. It should be about competent delivery; about business-like management of our lives. And that is something which the Liberal Democrats in North Wilts and the Labour Party in Westminster are demonstrably short of. There was something deeply irritating about the Prime Minister’s reaction to the tragic teenage shootings in South London during the week. “We must have more legislation” was his first reaction – despite the 38 Criminal Justice Acts in recent years. I was in Dunblane for a couple of days to visit my Mother, where hearts are still very sore over the awful shootings there more than ten years ago now. Handguns were banned then, resulting in our Olympic teams having to practice in France. But one thing is for sure – that ban, against which I spoke in my Maiden Speech despite my Dunblane background – has made not a blind bit of difference in South London today. We need a much more fundamental and hard-headed review of why society has broken down in the way it has; why it is that teenagers are taking part in drug gang warfare, and what the churches, families as well as government can do about it. The kneejerk reaction – “we must do something about this tragedy, so lets change the law”, not only produces bad law, but also misleads the body politic into the false presumption that “something has been done about it”, and so to relax their outrage.

Carol O’Gorman sought to curry votes by saving Wootton Bassett Leisure Centre, ignoring the appalling financial plight which she either knew all about or was culpably ignorant in not knowing about; Tony Blair seeks to assuage voters concerns by announcing new laws in reaction to every event. Both are guilty of gesture politics, and of a head-in-the-sand refusal to face up to the realities of their own failure in government. Both will ultimately pay the price at the ballot box.

Securing a future for local leisure facilities has been in the limelight since November when the District Council dropped its bombshell that definitely three and potentially all six leisure centres in North Wiltshire would close. This last week, we’ve seen a total triumph for people power and campaigning with the announcement on Monday that the Lime Kiln centre in Wootton Bassett would remain open for all to use and enjoy, aided by the private sector provider DC Leisure. 

The Save Our Sports campaign has been dynamic - rarely have I seen my constituents galvanized so resolutely into action by an issue of concern to them. And I am pleased and proud, both as the Chairman of the Save Our Sports Group and as their representative in Parliament, that their efforts have won the day. Of course, I remain extremely concerned about the future of leisure provision in Cricklade and Calne which, electorate-willing, will come into my constituency at the next General Election and I pledge to do all I can to help the continuing campaign to secure the centres there. I know that I and many across Wiltshire have been much buoyed by the Council’s decision to think again about closing Lime Kiln in response to the sheer force of public antipathy (and perhaps also to their disquiet at the thought of reprisals at the ballot box in May) but it doesn’t alter the fact that our local institutions and services will only continue to be available if we are prepared to fight for them.

As we have seen with the closure of our hospitals in Wiltshire, local needs often get short shrift to political tactics and financial expediency. We have also seen this with the closure of registrars’ offices in Corsham, Malmesbury, and Wootton Bassett -staggeringly illogical given the moves afoot in central Government to make the Civil Registration Service more flexible, especially in rural communities like ours - and with the planned closure of all but three of the Police enquiry offices in Wiltshire. I am much encouraged by the readiness of people in Wiltshire to stand up for the issues that matter to them, not least because although I am their elected representative to speak up for issues in Parliament, a lone voice locally would not be enough to contend the bureaucrats who are attempting to dismantle the fabric of our local community.

The House being in Recess for half term this week, I was glad to see the reverse of local cuts and closures when Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall opened the new Hathaway Medical Centre in Chippenham. It’s a magnificent new facility for the people of the town and, I hope, some of the surrounding areas.