Conservative anarchy?

Well what was all that about? David Cameron's launch of the Tory Manifesto left me visualising the kind of mayhem that might result from his notion of handing power to the people. What people, pray? I thought that was what democracy was about - we elect people to do all that stuff for us, pay them to take the time to do it full-time and not fit it in on a night when there's nothing to watch on the telly. What kind of people would be manning the barricades over the local post offices or starting up their own schools?

Ok, I sound scathing about ... well, people. And politicians are people too, but the point is that they do work at it full-time, give it their full attention for the span of a parliament. If they're rubbish, we don't vote them in again, and it looks as if their party gets rid of them if they're caught being naughty. And of course, if they use Twitter unwisely they don't even get the chance. Maybe the Tories want to do without Parliament at all, then? Return to village councils and local barons? Wicked sheriffs? Maybe not.

But it looks like a recipe for anarchy to me.

Do what you like ...

Today, St Athanasius' Day, England decided to be Tory again - or Liberal: anything but Labour - and might even elect a buffoon to be mayor of London. As I walked among brilliant gorse and fat cushions of primroses beside Loch Striven this afternoon, I reflected on how distant all this seems these days, in stark comparison to the gloom election results used to plunge me into in the dark days of Thatcher.

Then, England still seemed miles away ideologically as they returned Tory governments that Scotland didn't vote for, but the impact on our lives here seemed disproportionately great. Now we have our own government and I realise that I don't care what England does. It affects me no more than what happens in France. It is fitting that we have a Scottish government - and right now, fitting that we are not tied to a UK party. So, as the pheasants rush squawking through the woods and the rabbits risk death on the roadside, a happy St Athanasius day to you!