NOW, it would appear, is the summer of our discontent.

All around us people in essential services, whether they be teachers, doctors or train drivers and guards, are striking or engaged in protracted disputes.

The paying public, who rely on these crumbling services, experience daily the results of decades of mismanagement, political interference, and disdain for the aspirations of those who actually keep Britain staggering onwards, day after day.

You can say “Our nurses are wonderful” till you’re blue in the face but we haven’t trained nearly enough of them and we’ve imposed on them working conditions that are driving thousands, including good friends of mine, out of the profession.

Without immigration we’d be up the Swanee. Yet a plentiful supply of cheap foreign labour, much of it young, free and single, undoubtedly keeps wages low for British workers who have to buy or rent family homes, and they are understandably fed up as the chasm between haves and have-nots yawns ever wider.

What a great time to impose financial punishment on those who have the temerity to become landlords.

Because of course there are thousands of council houses vacant out there! Not.

Meanwhile people who voted to remain in Europe want the referendum result overturned. “It wasn’t fair,” they cry. “Those who didn’t agree with us didn’t know what they were doing.”

And the Leavers feel betrayed by those who led them towards the exit but are now backtracking on promises they could never keep.

So what’s this? A sudden outbreak of meaningful democracy and localism? Yes, and at County Hall, of all places.

I actually drove up there for Tuesday’s vote, convinced that the Trowbridge Tories would approve Salisbury City Council’s hostile (some called it bullying and blackmailing) takeover bid for the parish of Laverstock & Ford.

I was all set to slate them. But the wind was taken completely out of my sails.

Wiltshire members recognised that it was all about money – Salisbury is desperate for extra council tax – and accepted that independence was what people in Laverstock wanted.

Residents stood up to praise the integrity, efficiency and community spirit of the smaller, non-party political parish council as it fought for its life.

To top it all, some Tories disagreed with Jane Scott!

The Baroness suggested that Bishopdown Farm, currently split between the parishes, ought to be handed over to Salisbury in its entirety.

Given that she needs the city to take responsibility for assets that her administration has no further use for, that’s understandable. Maintenance costs money, and nobody’s got any.

But instead, members gave all the estate to Laverstock, whose volunteers have invested hundreds of hours and their professional expertise in pushing through plans for a country park to form part of a much-needed green network of public spaces.

I can’t remember when I was so pleased to have been proved wrong.

So even if Wiltshire has flogged off our CCTV building, quietly forcing the shutdown of the system, I can say something nice about it for once.

You know it won’t last!

anneriddle36@gmail.com