WE spent Easter basking in the wonderful Wiltshire sunshine, giving thanks at a glorious Easter service at All Saints’ Church, Broad Chalke, and navigating the vagaries of the Olympic ticket website. It was like buying a lottery ticket – and I am told that the chances of winning the lottery are better than getting a cheap seat for the opening ceremony – but with all the excitement of the unknown.

Handball finals? Why not? Beach volleyball? Might be just the thing to kick start diet plans.

With a large constituency stretching from the A303 almost to the M4, I always feel that I am not spending enough time in any one place so it was great to have three reasons to visit Larkhill this month: an advice surgery in the community centre, a grand dinner (complete with duelling trumpets) at the Royal Artillery Mess and the opening of the new Packway project that has already done so much to improve the ambience of the main street. I have also been busy campaigning for a “No”

vote in this week’s AV referendum.

The core question is whether we want an electoral system that is simple, based on the principle of one personone vote, and which delivers unequivocal results, or one that is muddled, unpredictable and counts all votes – even fifth and sixth preferences, as the same. Like many others I am keen to see great changes in our political system but these will be better achieved by allowing voters to sack failing politicians between elections or complete transparency over expenses, not through a move to an AV system that even its supporters describe as a “miserable little compromise”.