I hope that this may be the very last occasion upon which I feel moved to write in this column about local government reorganisation in Dorset.

As I write this column, I am on the way to one of my regular meetings with the Chair and the Chief Executive of Dorset County Hospital. 

Over the years, these meetings have taken many forms. 

I am writing this column not many hours before Parliament debates the Statutory Instrument which (if passed) will trigger the reorganisation of local government in Dorset.

As I write this column, votes are still being counted for the local elections. 

We in West Dorset were not amongst those called upon to vote. But there are two bets I am willing to make.

As I write this column, I am on my way from London to Dorset at first light on a rather dreary slightly rainy day.

Last week, in this column, I wrote about the question of whether it was ever appropriate for a government to take military action without prior parliamentary approval. 

As I write this article, sitting in the House of Commons after returning from meetings with the Communist Party hierarchy in Beijing, I do not yet know what my readers might well know by the time they are reading this – namely, what action, if any, the UK will have taken in Syria following the de

The ghastly fate of Mr Skripal and his daughter (and, of course, a British policeman) seems particularly close to home if one lives not many miles away from Salisbury. 

Last week, in Westminster, marked the anniversary of the senseless attack on innocent civilians and the more purposeful effort to attack Parliament, in which PC Keith Palmer died in the line of duty.

At the time when I was writing last week's column, I was stuck in London, unable to find a clear path to West Dorset.