Continuous rain shortening this year’s Royal Show and a declining exhibition area left people asking questions about the show’s future, to the extent whether some visitors questioned whether there would be a show next year.

But reassurances were given by the RASE chief executive Professor John Moverley that the 2008 show at Stoneleigh would definitely go ahead.

The weather had a significant effect on the attendance, which was 10 percent down after the first day and a half day, and considerably down from the 140,000 who came last year.

Both opposition party leaders were there and in a significant change to Tory policy former Conservative minister John Gummer, chairman of the Policy Group, said that a holistic approach to home food security would be at the top of the Conservative agenda. This was unlike the present government, who had neglected this vital issue, he said.

Gummer described his party’s ‘Quality of Life’ report as a major review of agricultural and rural policies, including energy and transport, which will be submitted to leader David Cameron.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said the popular image of ‘a rural idyll hides a darker reality of rural life’, with 20 percent living in poverty.

“Labour does not seem to care about the countryside, but we remember the damage suffered by the rural economy under the previous 18 years of Conservative rule,” he said.

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