Local MP Jesse Norman has announced a possible bid to stand for leadership of the Conservative party, emphasising the importance of public service and the need for "an intelligent, warm, inclusive campaign that addresses the pressing need for Brexit but that also reaches beyond the Conservative party and brings people together."

Commenting, he said: "Ever since I was elected, my goal has been to put this county, and the needs and views of my constituents from Hereford to Ross to all our villages and hamlets, on the national map. This is one further step in that direction. That is why I am now consulting with my colleagues, party members and constituents about potentially standing for the Conservative leadership.

"We should be ambitious not for ourselves, but for our country: for the future of this extraordinary, warm, funny, tolerant, open, traditional, kind, inclusive, mad, conflicted, joyous United Kingdom of ours, from Lands End to John O’Groats, Enniskillen to the Wash.

"If you agree, if you want new faces at the table; if you share these ambitions; if you agree about the central importance, now more than ever, of history and philosophy and substantive debate in politics; then please say so. Now is the time for moderate, decent people to speak up. Let us start the long process of reconstruction.

Read the full story in this week’s Ross Gazette.