Page 16 - may2024

May 2024 May 2024
NEWS FROM WESTMINSTER
OVER THE HILL

Last month I hosted a group of work experience
students in the constituency office. Ten students from For the third time I am trying to get this article in a presentable order. Actually it is
six different schools gave up a week of their Easter the fourth as I have tried once on Madge’s computer, which is far younger than
holiday to gain an insight into the world of local and mine but has not been used for a while. Being in my early eighties, computers are
national politics. a complete mystery to me nowadays, despite many years of use but apparently
as you get older it is wrong not to keep in practice with one, because they
A few years ago, I was the chairman of the All-Party change in many peculiar ways and are constantly wanting updating and the
Parliamentary Group on Youth Employment, and it buying of new intricate systems. Actually I must confess that without David Gray’s
was clear from our research that it is important that help this article would never have reached our wonderful editor.
young people can have the opportunity to see first-
hand how the skills and knowledge they are Actually I have just found a reading from the bible
developing at school can be transferred into the work place. that would seem appropriate here.

My staff and I “Once again old men and women, so old that
arran ge a they use a stick when they walk, will be sitting in
v a r i e d the city squares.” (Zechariah 6.8)”.
programme of
activities which So if you see me walking up the West Street with a
a r e b o t h stick or sitting on the seat outside the shop in the
interesting, and capital city of Bere Regis, you will understand that
I am getting old.
reflect the
types of work Everything is changing in the world today at a
my staff and I pace that is so rapid, with population levels rising
do on a regular at very high rates, some 6.3% in this country in the
bas i s . Th i s past ten years. This plus the fact that the present
involves some generations are all living that much longer and
of the more that our diets are so much more demanding, it
m u n d a n e means there is a huge rise in the amount and
administrative quality of food required to feed us all..
t a s k s l i k e
p u t t i n g This puts our farmers in grave straights, with our
hundreds of government requiring them to plant 10% of their land with trees, increase their
letters into hedgerows and reduce their inputs of fertilisers and sprays, which will inevitably
envelopes and mean a reduction of their yields, while costs and all overheads are constantly
delivering leaflets, as well as the highlights! During the week, the young people going up and prices of their finished products remaining the same or even
had the chance to ask questions of a member of the House of Lords in a virtual reducing. All this, plus the fact that we have been experiencing the wettest winter
Q & A; chat to my staff about what it is like to work in the seat of our democracy ever recorded, puts farmers in very difficult circumstances.
in Parliament; find out about being a local Town or Dorset Councillor; and chat In my forty odd years as a farm/estate manager, I was responsible for purchasing
to me about their plans for their future careers. They asked me about being a some millions of pounds worth of fertiliser with high nitrogen solubility and all sorts
local MP and Cabinet Minister, and we challenge them too - we ask them to of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides which increased the yield potentials of
imagine they are in charge. What laws would they change? What would they arable crops and grassland generally but nowadays are considered
ban? How would they react to differing demands on their time? What would environmentally unfriendly.
they do to solve various national issues? If they could be Prime Minister, who
would they choose to be in the Cabinet? During my farming days, making a profit was as difficult as it is today, but with all

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