Parliament is in recess, for the Party Conferences. Ed Davey, of the Liberal Democrats, has endeared himself to me with his relentless absurdity; I honour him for his persistence in performing water-based stunts for the cameras. He has a more important message about care and carers, which I more genuinely respect; but I fear his essential frivolity also applies here. What significant, radical change, in any branch of policy, can we expect from the Lib Dems?
Reform held their Conference this weekend too. I didn’t catch much of it though I note they have appropriated the slogan ‘Family, Community, Country’ which I have been proclaiming for years. This focus on the ties that bind us is preferable, to me, to their former libertarianism, and suggests they have correctly read the public mood: people want meaning, belonging, and duty, as well as freedom.
Druid’s Lodge Polo Club sprawls around a stable yard and house built by a racing syndicate at the turn of the last century: the dormitory above the yard had outside bolts, to lock in the stable-lads before a race to stop them selling tips. The Ormerod family, who set up the polo club here 30 years ago, teach students the basics (sans horses) in the ballroom, before proceeding (on horses) to a wooden-walled arena, and then to the beautiful fields - vast football pitches - where the game is played. Tae Ormerod talked me through the many ways in which the modern world conspires against their business; the next great threat - which I hear from businesses of all kinds - is Labour’s proposal to give workers full employment rights (including against dismissal) from day one. If the original stable-lads were locked in by the boss, under Labour they’ll be locked in by the government.
Druid’s Lodge is a significant local employer, offering well-paid training and jobs (and accommodation) to local young people. If they can only take on youngsters they have total confidence in before they start - well, they won’t.
Till Valley Eggs are produced from a farm above Berwick St James, southwest of Stonehenge. Boss Jeremy Pratt casually opened a door and there were 4,000 hens, quietly clucking away in a barn. These chickens are too young to scratch around outside, as they will in a week or so, and then all day every day until, aged 18 months or so, they are dispatched (‘it’s always a sad time’, says Jeremy) to make your chicken nuggets. Meanwhile, every 25 hours, in a little long hut at the back of the barn, they each lay an egg onto a gentle astroturf slope, whence it is conveyed on a belt to a machine which sprays the farm code on to the shell, packs them into pallets, and off they go, via middlemen, to the supermarket. Always note the number before the farm code: 0 is organic; 1 is free range; 2 is barn only; 3 is caged. Till Valley eggs are all 0s and 1s.
I met the parish council of Berwick St James; knocked on some doors; held a drop-in public meeting in the Reading Room. Everyone, naturally enough, is consumed with frustration and ennui - a sort of tired fury - about the latest set-back on fixing the traffic around the A303. The Government has cancelled the Stonehenge tunnel, and so the nightmare of congestion and rat running continues. This week there was another serious crash (which again closed the road for several hours) by the turning at Winterbourne Stoke: you can sit there for three or five minutes to pull out. I have had a very unsatisfactory reply from the Transport Secretary to my letter about investment in Wiltshire roads following the decision on the tunnel, and I will be meeting more parish councils and talking to Wiltshire Council about a combined assault on Government.
St James’s Church in the village, which the rector Rev. Jonathan Plows showed me round, sits perfectly back from the road. It is a Norman building with later additions, including a fifteenth-century stone pulpit (‘a rare survival’, says Pevsner). In 1655, perhaps appalled by Cromwell’s Commonwealth, the tower fell down, and was rebuilt in happier times in 1670.
