I jumped at a late chance this morning to meet up with Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, the prospective Conservative candidate for the new Chippenham seat that also includes Corsham, Melksham and Bradford on Avon ... here's a picture of us at the station.



It was good to meet Wilfred, who I've heard a great deal about, and to fill him in on the aspects of the TransWilts train service; he's left with further information and he's going to be offering support for the service as part of his platform.  As he's got good contacts with the media (indeed he had a photographer with his this morning), and I've emailed him some copy, it should help with visibility. There's a bit of a question mark as to how much a potential future MP can do as opposed to one who's already elected, but great to have him on board too. It may now be that the battle for this December is lost, but "the war is far from over" - the SWT franchise was announced this morning, and an email from First tells me that they're still working very closely with the County Council to see what can be done for next year.

We have two strong candidates for the next general election, and a marginal seat.  It will be interesting