Last Tuesday (29 January) Parliament held the latest in its series of Brexit votes. As you will have seen by now, the results confirmed a number of things that many of us have suspected for some time - and that I have noted in reply to those constituents who have contacted me about Brexit.

I’m pleased to be able to tell readers that Essex County Council’s Conservative administration has been achieved the prized category of Outstanding for their Children’s Services.

You may read this expecting the latest on the political machinations surrounding the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Over the years I have met a good many elderly people who have been stripped of all or part of their hard-earned pensions by cold calling fraudsters.

A very happy new year to you all. The new year has been embodied for me by the series of remarkable images beamed back from the deepest reaches of our solar system, some billion miles beyond Pluto.

As the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the prevention of Adverse Childhood Experiences I am all too well aware of how problems in the early years of a child’s life can have a profound effect for years to come.

If you look around your home this week, there is a good chance your gaze will fall on recycling bags stuffed to the gunnels with screwed up wrapping paper, cardboard and plastic packaging and, in a moment, possibly this newspaper.

Some of my most precious possessions are letters. Adolescent letters from school friends (pre-email gossip). Letters from friends living in exotic locations (including one from a friend in India in which a tiger appeared in front of him whilst he was writing to me).

Libraries have quietly undergone huge changes since I used to visit my local library as a child to get my weekly fix of the adventures of Noggin the Nog.

It’s been a mild November to date with little more than a couple of torrential downpours and a shortening of the days to remind us winter is on its way.