Indeed, I’d be a rich man if I had a fiver for every time one of my friends – most of them living in rural areas – said in those now far-off PD (pre-devolution) days: ‘Oh, I’m not in the slightest bit interested in the Scottish Parliament; it won’t affect me.’

However, as we approach what will be the third election to the new assembly that last statement must now ring especially hollow for the simple reason that there has been a gradual, if shocked, dawning that Holyrood really is an extremely powerful legislature.

More than that, it has also produced proof positive that there is a truly incredible ignorance of, and affinity for, the countryside amongst the ranks of the country’s law makers. We Scots may make a huge fuss about our heather-clad hills and our magnificent lochs and rivers but for the majority of the population the great outdoors is something seen, if at all, through the windscreen from the car parks at Loch Muick, Loch Lomond or some other easily accessible beauty spot. And, while many of us may jib at the idea that those 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament are truly representative – in the strictest sense of the word – of the population, it is surely true to say that we get the politicians we deserve.

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