ON Friday I had two meetings with farmers in my constituency concerned about, among other things, flooding and rural crime.

Crime in the countryside is a specialist form of villainy with “practitioners” who travel long distances, know what they’re doing and who are often prepared to use violence.

Rural enterprises are increasingly using high tech wizardry to deter and detect. Wiltshire Constabulary has had some success in tackling rural crime, keeping one step ahead of offenders.

I have written to Police and Crime Commissioner Angus McPherson, who I know shares my concerns, and to Defra.

I’ve also written to Defra about the Environment Agency, which many people feel is unfit for purpose.

Successive chairmen of this distinctly urban body have indulged in programmes of studied neglect.

What they’ve done on the Somerset Levels would surely not have been tolerated in Holland or, for that matter, in the naturally soggy bits of the east of England.

I’m afraid where you’ve got people and businesses below sea level, simple physics mean you really do have to drain and pump even if it means an environment that is less conducive to certain sorts of wildlife.

I’m sorry the Lords have refused James Wharton’s EU Referendum Bill. They’ve no business doing so as there really can be no doubt the public wants to have the in-out referendum it would allow. The remarks of the French president buzzing into Brize Norton for a yarn with the PM were also unhelpful. If I was him I’d be thinking about a tighter-knit arrangement with Germany, allowing countries like the UK to relate to the Eurozone in a more Common Market sort of way. That would work for me and, I believe, the great majority of British people.

Be in no doubt, if there’s a Conservative government in 2015 there will be a referendum and it will be in-out.

Monsieur Hollande must understand, as I suspect Chancellor Merkel does, that to keep the UK in there will have to be treaty change.