Two pieces of political memorabilia have come my way this week.

The first is an election card dated 1929 for my predecessor Captain Cazalet (who was MP from 1924 until killed in the Sikorski crash in 1943). It reads: “Your support is asked for Captain Cazalet, the Conservative candidate. The man you know. No wild promises, but a record of performance and a policy of steady progress.” How charmingly modest.

The other is an election leaflet dated 2010, and posted in every letterbox in Britain. “It’s time to give the British people a REAL referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union,” it reads, and is signed by Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg.

I was able to share it with him as he stood in for Mr Cameron at last week’s PMQs, and to enquire why he was whipping his party against any such referendum.

If we politicians are to have any credibility, our promises must be modest and sensible like Captain Cazalet’s, and whatever they may be we must then rigidly adhere to them. It is a weird situation for the Government to have to resort to a private member’s bill to achieve this little piece of democracy because our so-called Democratic friends will not live up to their name. It’s filed in the same pocket as university tuition fees and fair votes, both of which solemn promises to the people they have also quietly binned.

I am a true Conservative. I voted for the in/out referendum, and for the amendments to the gay marriage bill and they, having failed, I again voted against the principle of the bill.

If that makes me a ‘swivel-eyed loon’, then I am proud to be one. Indeed, I am planning a new club to be called the Tory SWELLs. Geddit? The people I represent at least know where I stand on most things, and can trust me to do what I promise.

The weekend was a mass of local events: lunch in Biddestone; a barbecue with Wiltshire Wood Recycling at Castle Combe and the Chippenham Constitutional Club annual skittles dinner (where I was proud to hand out the Cazelet Cup); opening Wootton Hall; surgeries in Cricklade and Malmesbury, a plant sale in Brinkworth, the Royal Wootton Basset carnival procession and a dinner near Pewsey (is it any wonder that I am putting on weight?).

These events enable me to hear what people are saying, and then to try to express those views in Parliament. And none of them seemed to be the least bit swivel-eyed nor, indeed, mad loons.