Many readers of The Journal will be able to recall the childhood diseases such as mumps, measles, chicken pox, whooping cough and the often crippling polio virus.

Thanks to medical science, many of those illnesses have been prevented, with relieved parents allowing their children to be vaccinated to protect the sometimes serious consequences of contracting those viruses.

Perhaps because many younger people have not experienced disease, they are unaware of the seriousness of what are now mostly historical afflictions, having grown up in a much safer health environment than their older relatives. Now the conspiracy theories have sprung up and are spreading throughout the country and elsewhere globally, that the vaccines developed against Covid are an insidious attempt to control the population, that they contain tracking devices linked to G5, or Bill Gates, founder and former chairman of Microsoft. Many even believe that Covid does not exist.

One can forgive, even understand their scepticism and disbelief, when they see monetary greed, exploitation, and the lack of moral and ethical standards by those in power.

We are beginning to witness this at the lower levels of Government, not least in the planning system. There is a video in existence which shows one prominent councillor dancing around a recording studio in a frenzied, manic mode, arms waving, screaming ‘Build! Build! Build!’. It is his Government which is now overriding the long thought out Local Plans which have been drawn up by District Councils, and Neighbourhood Plans which have been worked on by residents, councillors and officers, sometimes taking several years of painful consideration.

A recent example of this came before me, as chair of planning at EDDC, for a delegated decision to refuse, based on the officers’ recommendation. The Ward Member then intervened at the last minute, as he disagreed with the recommendation, and wanted it to go to committee. That proceeded to the Planning Committee, who were informed by officers that new legislation is coming in at the beginning of August, in favour of even more development in the countryside, and that if we refused the application, the applicant could go to Appeal, by which time it would be allowed in law.

So here we have a Government which is riding roughshod over locally made plans, and has been since at least 2012, controlling what happens locally from Westminster.

Little wonder that there is distrust of those in power which is spreading like a disease itself, and out of control.