… I attended a pre-election press conference where Michael Meacher announced that a Blair administration would cancel the Conservative government's funding for a Salisbury bypass. (He thought it was a local vote-winner - we’d recently seen anti-road protesters at Newbury and Winchester and he evidently believed there was an equally strong groundswell here.)

But in the event the local Tory vote fell by just 2% (compared to 10% nationally) and that despite both the Labour and Liberal candidates suddenly saying they too wanted a bypass built.

But the new government was as good as its word. The plan was cancelled, the money re-allocated and today - with six-axle 44-ton lorries commonplace - Salisbury is still a major bottleneck for commercial traffic between Bristol and Southampton.

Murphy’s Law says “things can always get worse”, and Rob Key thinks that’s about to happen. He fears that Associated British Ports’ plan to build a new container terminal at Dibden Bay will put huge additional pressure on the Netherhampton Road – already the planned location for hundreds of new homes and yet another business park.

So Rob, if you and your party win next Spring, will you press for an urgent revival of the bypass plan? Please?

I spoke too soon

The plan to blow ten grand on fireworks three weeks after Guy Fawkes night - having been vetoed by Wiltshire Council as a waste of taxpayers’ money - has been been given the kiss-of-life by the parish (sorry, I keep forgetting, “City”) Council.

Apparently our elected representatives have discovered they can afford it through savings made elsewhere. (By cancelling their daft new “Constable viewing platform” beside the Long Bridge in Queen Elizabeth Gardens, perhaps? I think not.)

Can anyone explain how firing a few rockets on a chilly November evening helps Christmas sales? What particular instinct is supposed to be triggered? Do people from out-of-town watch them soar into the sky and then say: “hey, that’s great, let’s buy our Christmas turkey here”?

Odd, isn’t it, how other towns such as Romsey manage to have fireworks-free Christmas marketing campaigns and still seem to thrive. A more effective way of spending £10k to drum up city-centre business might be to offer market-day shoppers an hour’s free parking in the central car-park.