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WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS? COMMENT ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE OR TWITTER AT WWW. SCOTTISHFIELD. CO.UK we’re always told is a parliament that’s closer to the needs and wishes of all its people.

Have the train services outwith the Central Belt improved? Have bus services got better? Are the roads better given that the A9 has still not been dualled? Is the high-speed broadband that we’ve been hearing about, ad nauseam almost for the past 17 years, now reality? These are vital ingredients that help put country life and businesses on some form of equal footing with towns and cities. Oh sure, we’ve had promises about all of the above, but in spite of a period during which the various Scottish governments were literally awash with money, we’re now stuck in austerity days where every pound’s a prisoner.

But money is the least of rural Scotland’s problems; ignorance and a warped sense of what goes on beyond the city street lights are much, much worse. However, before we get to that, consider the appalling treatment that’s been meted out to Scotland’s farmers, who’ve been made to wait and wait for their Single Farm Payments from the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy. They did eventually get most of the £200 million due to them, but it was months late and can you imagine what would have been the furore if any other section of the Scottish economy was so deprived of vital cash?

We’ve had years of interference with how country sports are conducted, from the ban on fox hunting, which has actually led to more foxes killed than ever before, to attempts to restrict snaring and a ban on tail docking, which, in the latter case, inflicts more pain on working dogs.

As everyone now knows, there’s a new Land Reform Act which will actually make it harder for would-be farmers to get tenancies – the exact opposite of what we were told it would do.

And so, back to the opening question: can rural Scotland expect a better deal from this new bunch of MSPs? It certainly needs and deserves one. In my recent travels I’ve seen for myself the incredible damage last winter’s floods did. From the Borders to Deeside and beyond, it is astonishing how badly many areas fared under that incessant deluge with many millions of pounds worth of damage to farmland, rural businesses and the courses of rivers that are a vital asset to the economy of the countryside.

To conclude: if ever the countryside deserved a better deal – it’s right now. There’s been a fair bit of chat in recent years about the prospects for a new party of the centre-right and given Labour’s recent travails and the fact that the SNP constantly pinches all its policies, maybe a new left-wing outfit is on the cards.

However – and I know this would be a difficult ‘ask’ – but given the way most of the current parties view rural affairs, maybe it’s time for the emergence of a fully-fledged Country Party.