Maybe it’s the dreary weather or the relentlessly negative 24 hour media cycle but sometimes it’s hard to feel positive about this great country. Of course there are terrible stories like the barbaric behaviour of the so-called Islamic State fighters who seem determined to besmirch their peaceful religion and the insecurity this creates in Western cities where home grown terrorists want to kill and maim their fellow citizens, but to give into fear would be playing into the hands of those who Boris Johnson described so accurately.

So last week was for me, a change to see some of the Best of British and have my pride and faith in our fundamental values and abilities restored. I started with a visit to the Olympic Park in Stratford, this time to see the legacy of regeneration that was planned before the great event and is being delivered in record-quick time. It is hard to imagine the site as it was back in the 2000s, a huge train marshalling yard, surrounded by bleak marshland, now utterly transformed by connecting it to the rest of the country by tube, train and High Speed links, with superb iconic Olympic buildings, a biomass heating and hot water system for the whole site, the land and rivers cleared and replanted, hotel and housing built and all done in just a few years with the whole project bought in on budget and on time. Now there are business towers popping up, all sorts of housing options and an £140mm ‘Olympicopolis’ culture hub to rival that of west London and a buzz of pride about the whole process. We, the tax payers, still own part of the site and it was good to see the value that is being created on our behalf.

From there I headed home to Wiltshire and started off with a visit to Wiltshire College in Trowbridge to hear of the plans for new buildings and the new principal’s determination to offer more and better higher education choices for school leavers and young adults in the county. We discussed the need to address the huge shortage of engineering skills locally, with local employers struggling to find qualified people as their order books grow, and from there I visited Knorr-Bremse in Melksham, a thriving rail supply company benefiting from multi-million pound orders to supply Crossrail but again struggling to recruit talent. I finished the week feeling proud but more determined than ever to work to address this local skills shortage should I be re-elected on May 7.