In these difficult times, voters often complain that politicians speak robotically as agents of their Party, unable or unwilling to confront harsh realities or home truths.

In contrast, my own experiences since the 2010 General Election have led me to believe that honesty is by far the best policy. Therefore, and being entirely honest, I absolutely admit that the past couple of weeks have been extremely tough for the Coalition Government.

In my view, the most worrying of the recent controversies has been the fuel debacle. To be blunt, the Government has not handled the situation well, although I genuinely believe that their intentions were honourable. As a Government you are sometimes faced with a double-edged sword in that if you fail to warn of a potentially costly strike, you will be accused of acting too late. Yet on the other hand, get the early warnings wrong and you provoke the sort of panic that we have all witnessed over the past week or so.

However, to be honest, the language used within the issued advice was far too extreme and succeeded only in causing unnecessary alarm. For this we should apologise frankly and openly.

Meanwhile, the threat of a future strike continues to hang over our heads and we should adopt a sensible, genuine and principled approach as fresh talks with the unions take place.

Such strike action always hits ordinary families, commuters and businesses hard. In rural areas such as North Yorkshire, this impact is always magnified. We have seen over the past few days some better news about the economy, with exports up and higher than expected growth now predicted for the first quarter of 2012.

An unnecessary fuel strike would put these encouraging signs of economic progress at risk in one single blow, potentially dragging our economy down for another quarter at least. That is how important our fuel distribution networks are, and that is why industrial action on the scale being suggested would be entirely foolish and deeply unwise.

This matter has been dealt with badly by the Government to date, but we must now seize the initiative, get the unions around the table and urge an amicable agreement through commonsense negotiations.

Keep pushing for ‘Tour’ event

Last week I was delighted to attend the Welcome To Yorkshire conference which was hosted in the Barbican, here in the centre of our great city. Since becoming an MP, I have met frequently with Welcome To Yorkshire representatives and I have always been impressed by their good work across our region.

We should never underestimate the importance of tourism to York’s local economy and I have frequently raised questions in the House of Commons asking Ministers to recognise the unique beauty and historical significance of many of our local landmarks.

Looking ahead, however, I am really excited about the campaign to bring the initial phase of the Tour de France to Yorkshire in 2016. Led by Welcome To Yorkshire, the bid is centred around the Grand Départ – the opening two days of racing – which are held in a new location outside France every two years.

York is sure to be central in the bid and if successful we could well see participants in this historic sporting event cycling around the Minster and other historical attractions. Needless to say, bringing the event to our region would serve as a huge boost to the tourist trade with positive knock-on effects for our own local economy.

I am led to believe that the initial discussions have gone very well and as such I would urge all York residents to fully back “Le Bid” as the competition heats up over the months ahead.