I spent a few days in Nepal over the Easter Recess as part of a five strong Parliamentary group, one of 28 Brits monitoring their first General Election for twenty years. I was pleased and proud that my son who is working in an orphanage in Nepal was one of the entirely voluntary and unpaid observers. I regretted that one national newspaper should have tried to make some kind of capital out of it, although I strongly support a free press as an integral part of democracy! The elections mark an end of ten years of bloody civil war with Nepal going Maoist as the rest of the world moves away from Communism! But I suppose that’s democracy for you. And even although some elements of the electoral process which we witnessed were a very long way away from being “free and fair”, maybe its nonetheless better than civil war?

 

A week in Wiltshire full of constituency engagements, and it was back to the Mother of Parliaments, on whom the Nepali system is loosely based to start the Summer term. I was glad – as Chairman of the All Party Group for the Army - to be able to host a Reception on Monday to welcome home and thank 120 soldiers from 52 Brigade who have served so well in Afghanistan. It was particularly moving to see the uncomplaining wheel-chair bound servicemen, who were proud of what they have done for their country, yet to think of the sad “Repatriations” of the bodies of the fallen who we have honoured week in week out in Wootton Bassett, most recently the two RAF Regiment soldiers last Friday.

 

Tuesday saw grave and weighty discussions over the content of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, to a very large part of which I am instinctively opposed. However  I hosted a meeting as Chairman of the All Party Group for Multiple Sclerosis on Tuesday, to listen to two distinguished scientists, as a result of which I feel myself moving towards supporting the controversial part of the bill which will allow- under very tightly controlled circumstances – experiments on cells taken from artificially created human embryos. It’s a controversial issue, and I have had a huge post bag on it, very largely opposed to the bill. But at the end of the day it has to be an individual decision for each MP to take, and I am just coming to think that if we can find a cure for MS, and Parkinsons, then a process with which I am ethically uncomfortable just may be justifiable, even if it may to some degree be electorally unpopular.

 

I had a question to the Prime Minister on Wednesday, and used it to highlight the sharp loss in manufacturing jobs in this area – St Ivel in Wootton Bassett, Hygrade in Chippenham, Dyson in Malmesbury and now the news that the chicken factory in Sutton Benger is to close with the loss of 450 jobs - a decision which will have a mixed response from people locally. But we must not allow this to become an – albeit very pleasant - suburban commuter area for Bristol and Swindon. To be truly vibrant, an area like this needs proper jobs, and proper jobs for ordinary people, not just the managerial classes.

 

All of these things in my week- soldiers returning from a war against terrorism and intimidation; the right to decide on behalf of my constituents how to vote on a very grave matter like embryo research, the ability to challenge the greatest in the land over jobs in a chicken factory in Sutton Benger. These things and so many more like them are the very lifeblood of democracy. We all hope that the people of Nepal – and Zimbabwe – may sooner or later be able to look forward to something which at least comes close to it, warts and all.

 

Which American Presidential candidate was it who famously ascribed his victory to “It’s the economy, stupid.”? Well a few election results around the World seem to be confirming just that.

 

Who could have predicted the re-election of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy against all the odds? Facing an economically uncertain future, people seem to have opted for the man who offers competence and stability rather than necessarily social benefits. Zimbabwe is a highly complex situation, and we all so hope and pray that the dictator Mugabe will be duly removed from office, although his call for a recount just because he seemed to have lost the election must surely be both undemocratic and unconstitutional. But what a tragedy it is to see what was once the most prosperous of nations at least in this part of Africa brought to its knees in this way. Inflation at many thousands of a per cent, once flourishing farms reduced to arid deserts. There are other reasons for his defeat at the polls as well as the collapsed economy, but there can be no doubt that it has a central role in the tragedy. And in Nepal, there has been a surprise electoral success for the Maoists, apparently flying in the face of the rest of the World where old-style communism is sharply in retreat, apparently because the middle of the road Nepali Congress Party have made a bit of a hash of the economy. “It’s the economy, stupid.”

 

Now, if that’s true, what does it mean for all of us here in North Wiltshire? Well, first of all, we would be foolish if we were not on the edge of our seats worrying about what our economic future may be as a result of the “credit crunch”. Our banking system is facing some kind of a systemic problem; mortgages and loans are ever harder to achieve; there seems to be a real risk of Recession, some have said slump in the US, our own over-inflated house market is probably undergoing something of a correction. Worrying times indeed, and made worse by Gordon Brown’s tenure as Chancellor of the Excheqeur.

 

He, of course, would have us believe that its all the result of International pressures quite beyond his and Mr Darling’s control. And to some degree he is right. But the fact of the matter is that in the good times which he inherited from the outgoing Conservative Government, he woefully failed to take any precautions against rainy days to come. And now our economic roof is leaking badly. Not only that, but a glance at the totally incompetent way in which he handled Northern Rock by comparison with the coolly efficient sale of Bear Stearns by the US must raise questions about their competence to manage our economy and banking system.

 

The Labour Government’s poll woes at the moment without doubt reflect the general public’s concerns about the economy. But I am very glad that George Osborne is neither tacitly welcoming what is happening to the economy, which may become so damaging to people’s ordinary lives, nor is he just assuming that economic incompetence with Labour will necessarily mean electoral success for we Tories. After all, we won the 1992 General Election despite a pretty awful economy, and went down to a Labour landslide in 1997 despite by then a pretty sound one.

 

So its hard hats on, everyone, and prepare for a bit of a rough ride, although perhaps not as bad as the catastrophe theorists would have us believe. And lets just see what effect an economic crisis which may turn out to be less severe than some fear will have on British politics. Is it really just “the economy, stupid?”

What a glow of pride there was on the faces of the young men who I witnessed completing their arduous 32 week basic training as Royal Marine Commandos, and passing off from the “King’s Squad,” at the Royal Marines base in Lympstone, Devon last Thursday. And what a glow of tragic pride there was on the faces of the so similar friends and relations who joined the people of Wootton Bassett in their High Street on Friday to pay tribute as the bodies of two soldiers from 40 Commando Royal Marines were brought back to this country having been killed in action in Afghanistan.

 

I detected no bitterness, no anger at the loss of these young lives. Deep sadness, of course, but nonetheless profound pride that they had died doing the jobs which they loved, and which they did with such superb professionalism. The young men and their families at Lympstone knew what they were facing on their imminent deployment to Afghanistan or elsewhere, and they were ready to face up to the reality that it just might be they who would face injury or even death on active service. They were not deterred nor dismayed by the prospect even slightly. Quite the contrary, they were keen to face the Nation’s enemy, and to do their bit. That’s why they joined up.

 

I detected the same spirit when I had visited 40 Commando during their deployment in Lashkar Gah, Hellmand Province, only a few weeks ago. They were serving under the toughest and most dangerous conditions. Many of their colleagues had been killed or injured. They were surviving unshaved and unwashed and on basic rations for weeks at a time. Yet they were neither “gung ho” and braggardly, nor ”rough and tough”, nor depressed in any way. The young soldiers I met under these most extreme of combat circumstances were quietly well-spoken, modest about their achievements, highly intelligent and well motivated.

 

By strange coincidence a number of Royal Marine Commandos in uniform were in the Strangers Gallery of the House of Commons last Wednesday preparatory to a reception in the Foreign Office that evening. They too were intelligent, well-informed, forthcoming and well balanced. I was discussing all of this with them, and pondering how it could be that their colleagues were so cheerful under these most adverse of conditions. “Its training, Sir,” they responded. “Cheerfulness under adversity is one of the three basic aims of Marine Commando training. Its drilled into us for 32 weeks at Lympstone, and it never leaves us thereafter whatever happens.” I was glad to be able to tell them, and to tell the Commandant at Lympstone, and their colleagues who I met at the sad repatriation of their fellow Commandos’ remains through Wootton Bassett that Friday, that the young men who I had seen on Operations in Afghanistan were an absolute advertisement for the sort of training which they had undergone so very recently at Lympstone.

 

My own links are more with the Army, but I am happy to salute the magnificent spirit, courage and sheer professionalism of this heroic group of young men, Her Majesty’s Royal Marine Commandos.

 

How can it be that all of the talk at an otherwise highly intelligent dinner party over the weekend was not of great matters of state, not of crucial local issues, but was wholly dominated by Carla Bruni – a lady of whom most of us had never heard until a month or two ago. How can the Daily Telegraph have devoted pages to exactly what she was wearing during the State Visit, whether or not she and Monsieur le President had a quick cuddle on the Thames Barge, (and incidentally how it was that Gordon Brown got lost at the State Banquet.) Not since Jacqueline Onassis, or Grace Kelly, can a “first Lady” have dominated the coverage of a State visit so conclusively.

 

I went to the most impressive meeting in the House of Lords Royal Gallery to welcome the Sarkozys. How important it is that we should have done so – to reconfirm the primacy of Parliament. And how good it was to listen to the President’s most impressive and passionate speech under the two great murals – of the British victories over the French at Waterloo and Trafalgar! Carla was there, and at a couple of hundred yards remove looked pretty enough. But was she really so important in what should have been a great and grave occasion of state? How embarrassing it must have been for Gordon Brown – sitting with David Cameron in the front row, unlike my cheap seat at the back of the hall – to hear Sarko congratulate him on forcing the Lisbon Treaty through Parliament. Should the attention of the press and public not have been on matters like that rather than the precise cut of Carla’s – admittedly very stylish –coat?

 

But then again, to those of us who hate the Lisbon Treaty, who are fighting for the people to have their say in a long-promised referendum, who instinctively dislike the centralising Europeanisation from which we are all suffering – those of us who believe that the European Union should be little more than the trading agreement amongst free and independent nation states, which after all is all we signed up to in the last referendum on the subject; those, in other words who like me enjoy a modest and sensible Euro-realist approach to life, who believe that we should be “in Europe but not run by it,” or even “near Europe and not run by it” – we should perhaps be glad that Carla rather than Sarko was the focus of attention.

 

I am strongly in favour of the closest possible cultural links with the Continent. My own sister-in-law is French; I am a strong supporter of “twinning agreements” which bring differing people together to find common links in our cultures; I drink French wine, and adore their cooking; we all enjoy looking at French fashion so ably modelled by Ms Bruni. In other words, we want to enjoy France and the French for what they are, but we don’t want to be part of some massive governmental organisation which tries to rule both of us.

 

So maybe on reflection I do agree with the very “Frenchness” of the State Visit. Sarko’s English is broken to say the least; they had gone to some lengths to learn how to bow and curtsey; they were very much foreigners visiting this great land of ours. How healthy that is. How wonderful to respect and value the differences in our cultures, our economies, our philosphies. So: Vive la France; Vive l’Entente Cordiale. But Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen as well. And above all “Vive la Difference.”