Oliver Letwin MP

After 13 years as the local MP, I still find that meetings in West Dorset can produce remarkable surprises. Last week’s surprise was to do with Chinese lanterns. If, dear reader, I were to ask you whether Chinese lanterns have any great ecological significance, I wonder what your response would be. [...]

If someone said the words “respecting children’s rights”, what would you say in return?

“Not another new-fangled initiative”? “Why do we want to fill children’s minds with rights – aren’t there enough people talking about their rights already”?

If this would be your natural, sceptical reaction, I would well understand – because this was exactly the sort [...]

Who knows best? The locals, or the experts?

This is a question that I have repeatedly found myself asking over the years of writing this column.

It isn’t always an easy question to answer – because there are things that the experts know that the locals may not; and there are things [...]

West Dorset residents in the Sherborne area naturally tend to use Yeovil Hospital for the acute services that the Yeatman in Sherborne itself cannot provide.

But, for people further south, the normal destination is, of course, Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester. And Dorset County Hospital has been much on our minds recently.

As most readers of [...]

I don’t know how many times in the last few years I have heard people complaining about “apathy” – but this is certainly something one hears so often that it is in danger of becoming a cliché.

And yet, I frequently find that, when there is a topic of real importance to people locally, the [...]

As just about everyone now knows, our national finances are totally up the spout.

Almost no matter whom you ask, they will tell you that the Exchequer has been living wildly beyond its means and that we can’t go on like this.

The recognition that we face a gargantuan fiscal crisis is, of course, the first step [...]

What price a world heritage coastline?

Some years ago, we all celebrated the news that the magnificent coastline of Lyme Bay was to be a World Heritage Site. We expected that great benefits would follow.

In some respects, these early hopes and aspirations have been fulfilled. The worldwide publicity given to world heritage sites is very probably [...]

One of the worst features of the recession has been its effect on young people.

So far, at any rate, the growth of unemployment amongst people in mid-career has been rather lower than one might have feared in the deepest and longest economic downturn since the 1930s. Many firms and many employees have agreed to reduce [...]

Every so often, someone somewhere produces a piece of research that illuminates the scene.

I hope it won’t sound unduly cynical if I say that I don’t automatically assume that this will happen when the research in question is conducted by bodies with names like the “Rural Community Action Network”.

But last week in Westminster, this very [...]

A few days ago, I found myself yet again involved in the long-running saga of Local Spending Reports.

What, you may ask, are Local Spending Reports?

This is a highly pertinent question, since the answer is that at present there aren’t any.

Lest, dear reader, you should think I have finally taken leave of my senses, I should [...]