I cannot tell you how delighted I am that Rishi Sunak is Prime Minister. I’ve always supported this remarkable man, actively so as part of his team during both the summer and autumn campaigns. What struck me this time was not just the huge number of Conservative MPs endorsing Rishi but the fact that they come from all parts of my broad-church party. That’s important because he will have to quickly unite the world’s oldest political party after, let’s face it, a fractious and highly problematic interlude in our long history, one that most of us take little pride in.

The key challenge facing the Sunak administration will be economic as the country is buffeted by dire financial headwinds, many of which lie beyond our direct control. But the auguries are good – we have seen the markets respond favourably to Rishi’s election already. Markets may seem an arcane metropolitan preoccupation, but their importance lies in the real-life consequences they have for the public, most importantly my constituents.

The general sense at Westminster is that we now have a grown up in charge. Rishi Sunak is a decent, hard-working, competent, compassionate individual – definitely, the man for the moment.
I continue to lobby on the air quality issues I wrote about previously. The incinerator industry competes with more responsible reducing, reusing and recycling strategies for waste feedstuff, domestic and commercial. We already have too many incinerators yet more continue to be allowed. The cost is measured in terms of air quality and, possibly, human health.
It’s a pleasure to chair the Place Partnership for Trowbridge, Wiltshire’s county town. Whether you live in a village or a market town, town centres are almost certainly important to you. Too many have fallen victim to changing retail practises in recent years and need to be helped towards rejuvenation and, where appropriate, re-purposing.

I’ve now heard back from the Department for Transport about progress on the eagerly awaited Dorset coast to M4 strategic study that we expect to have implications for the A350. So, it turns out that the study isn’t now expected to report until early in the New Year. That’s disappointing but I will continue to apply pressure so that the schedule does not slip further.