Political View: 'A huge privilege to have been elected as your voice'

It is an area I have known well for many years, my wife and I live locally in the constituency, and it is a huge privilege to represent this new seat in Parliament.

It was a tough and very active election campaign, with me in the course of it being in each and every one of the just short of a hundred towns, villages, and hamlets of this beautiful constituency, but when I was elected in the early hours of Friday, July 5 as your voice in Parliament and locally, I was very clear that my work for you is only just beginning.

While, in future columns, I will address in more detail some of the specific, vitally important, local issues I pledged to work on, and to update you on progress, and on my work for you, locally and nationally, today I wanted to touch on the election, and our democracy.

In this, my first of hopefully many regular columns for the Melton Times, I want to pay tribute to all who ensured this election took place safely and fairly, and to those other candidates who stood in the election locally.

To put yourself forward to serve your community as an MP, County or Borough Councillor, or Parish Councillor is no small undertaking, and, whether one agrees with an individual candidates’ views or politics, or not, it is participation in our democracy that helps keep it strong and we should be grateful to those willing to put themselves forward to serve.

Sadly, we have seen in recent years a deeply troubling coarsening of political debate in some ways, not just in the UK but around the world.

Our democracy is precious, and we must always be resolute in defending it. While there will of course be times where we disagree politically, it is important that that debate is conducted courteously, in a measured way.

As your MP I will seek to work with all elected representatives locally, in that spirit, for our community.

I also want to pay tribute to the dedication of my immediate predecessors, Alicia Kearns and Alan Duncan - with whom over recent years I have worked on many local issues - to serving the people of Melton, the Vale, and the villages.

While each had their own style and way of doing that, as indeed will I, what I will always seek to emulate is their care, passion, and sheer hard work for the people of our area.

In just the past few days since the election result, as well as formally swearing the oath in Parliament as your MP, and taking up many pieces of casework, I have also been active on many of the local issues that matter to you and that I talked about during the election campaign, and hope that future columns will allow me to set out more detail of that work, and progress.

Alongside the hard work throughout the summer, I also look forward to a summer of attending local community events across Melton and Syston.

Just a day after my election, I had the huge pleasure, along with my wife Tish, of being welcomed to the Somerby Village Fete as the new local MP, a great example of something that typifies communities across the constituency – people coming together as a community, and I want to pay tribute to all those who helped put on the Somerby fete, and all who will help with similar events across the constituency this summer.

If there is a community event in your area that you’d like to invite me to as your local MP, or a business or organisation you’d like me to visit, please do either email me at: [email protected] or write to me at Rt. Hon Edward Argar MP, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA – while I can’t promise I’ll be able to attend every event, I’ll do my best to come and support you.

It is a huge privilege to have been elected as your voice, on your side, and I will always endeavour to do all that I can to repay the trust you have placed in me, serving the whole community, as your local MP.