New Year’s Resolutions are one thing (lose a bit of weight, be a bit nicer, take more exercise); hopes and aims for the whole New Year are much more serious. Here are a few of mine.

The General Election on May 7 is one of the least predictable for a long time. Labour are doing badly in a post-referendum Scotland, and look likely to lose at least 20/30 seats to the Scot Nats. That they remain level with the Tories in the national polls at about 35 per cent must show that they are doing better in England.

The Lib Dems seem to be in meltdown, although they usually do better in seats they hold than the polls would predict. UKIP and the Greens are the unknowns.

Neither will win many, if any, seats. But they and the Lib Dems may well divert enough votes away from the two main parties to cause unexpected upsets. It will be an election night well worth staying up for. My own hope is that our careful management of the economy will result in a Conservative majority government.

Everything else springs from that. The economy locally has been very strong. We must keep it that way.

Troops will at last start moving into the Technical Training base at Lyneham, which will be a very welcome shot in the arm for many local businesses. Farming and the food industry are still having a tough time, and there may be changes afoot in the car industry, which is so important in Swindon.

Public services and local government are suffering from necessary central Government funding constraints. But provision of health and education, of long-term care for the elderly, of road maintenance and so on has held up pretty well under the circumstances, and most people seem to accept that a degree of belt-tightening is necessary if we are to sort out the massive indebtedness which this government inherited.

Planning concerns me greatly. This lovely area remains strongly rural. How easy it would be to wreck all that in the foolish pursuit of ‘development’.

Some of the massive housing developments for which applications are pending around Chippenham, Royal Wootton Bassett and elsewhere are unwelcome invasions of productive agricultural land. (And we do not want the unsightly and unnecessary Range retail development to the west of Chippenham.)

I promise on these, and so many other areas, to keep up my work on behalf of all of you. So I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.