SADLY, there aren’t many shepherds abiding in the fields around Stonehenge these days but if there were, they’d have been treated to two visitations from on high this week.
Nick Clegg must have thought he was bringing glad tidings of great joy with his announcement that on/off tunnel project will finally go ahead (I’ll believe it when I see it).
But the season of goodwill proved short-lived for the Deputy Prime Minister when local LibDems made it clear they wouldn’t be forming an angelic chorus of approval.
Actually, their parliamentary candidate Reeten Banerji told the media, the £1.1bn* hole in the ground wasn’t ‘just what he’d always wanted’.
Embarrassingly for his leader, he then called for a local referendum on a range of improvements to the A303 instead, thereby handing a political gift to his party’s opponents.
Running the Liberal Democrats has always looked a bit like herding cats to me, and whilst independent thinking in the politically-inclined is always to be admired, I do feel a little bit sorry on this occasion for Westminster’s would-be ‘St Nick’.
To cap it all he was upstaged within hours by the Prime Minister, who couldn’t resist ‘doing a Barack Obama’ and striding masterfully across the prehistoric landscape for a photo-opportunity whilst pronouncing impressively that the tunnel is now an “unstoppable force”.
It’s a wonder Ed Miliband wasn’t discovered lurking behind a standing stone, hoping to tiptoe into shot for a share of the glory.
He really can’t win, can he? Mr Clegg, I mean. Or do I mean Mr Miliband? Or come to that, Mr Cameron? Gosh, aren’t we voters spoilt for choice?
Our little city, on the other hand, is onto a real winner with its Christmas market.
This year more than 120 coachloads of day-trippers from as far afield as South Wales and the West Midlands are dropping by to soak up the twinkly atmosphere and gluhwein and splash out on stocking-fillers.
I don’t know how much extra cash the market attracts to the rest of Salisbury, but wouldn’t it be nice to see a few more stalls in the High Street or the Maltings to spread the benefits more widely?
Incidentally, I’d love to know whether we have posters promoting our market in Winchester, to match their cheeky ad at the Castle Road roundabout.
For me, though, what really gets that festive feeling started every year is the totally delightful St Thomas’s Church Christmas tree festival.
In the same way that we treasure the tinsel-and-glue-smudged decorations our children bring home so proudly from school, we should nurture and support this homespun charmer of an event that gives so much pleasure to the creators and admirers of the trees, and raises so much money for good causes, too.
It’s what Christmas is really all about. (Yes, clichés are acceptable at this time of year.)
*Figures courtesy of the Department of Guesswork
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