SAVE Our Forests. Save Our Libraries. One campaign relates to our enjoyment of the great outdoors, the other to the benefits of reading, chiefly in our own homes.

Within that wide span of unrest are many other community protests – against wind farms, illegal travellers’ sites, post office closures.

In the Chilterns, people are up in arms against a proposed high speed rail line. Closer to home, Bedale is dismayed by the cancellation of a much-needed bypass.

Communities everywhere are having to fight for their environment and services. In the case of the forests, many interests have united to tell a benighted Government that it has got it all wrong.

But, really, there shouldn’t be a problem, should there? We now have the Big Society, in which grass roots views, and local wishes, supposedly count much more. So if a community says, virtually with one voice, that it doesn’t want a wind farm but does want to keep its public library, that should be the end of the matter.

But we all know that the Big Society is a sham. It is a front for shedding publicly-funded services and facilities and shifting the burden to volunteers. Run your own library – when you aren’t running your own post office, setting up a school or caring for your local forest.

And be prepared to repair your local roads and maintain the sewers.

Public services are a measure of civilised standards. We are now dismantling the structures of society built up over the century and a half since the Industrial Revolution.

And to add insult to injury, the barbarians responsible try to tell us the destruction is to our benefit.

AT least the Government is attempting to curb the abuse of the welfare system that presently allows 2.6m people to claim incapacity benefit – now disguised as “employment and support allowance” to reduce criticism. Trials of new tests suggest that only six per cent of claimants can be regarded as permanently incapable of work.

But the Government persists in describing the problem the wrong way round. Chris Grayling, the Employment Minister, says: “It’s unacceptable that so many people have been written off to a lifetime on benefits. We are determined to provide the necessary help for those that need it.”

What he should say, of course, is: “It’s unacceptable that so many people are content to spend a lifetime on benefits. We are determined to stop slackers exploiting the system.”

ILIVE in the North Yorkshire village where, last weekend, three elderly women had to be rescued from their car after the driver turned into the local beck when crossing a ford.

In the 46 years I’ve lived in the village this has happened only once before – but that was only last autumn. A local wag took a picture of the stranded car and placed it in the village notice board with the caption: “Great Broughton’s new parking facility”.

No rescue was needed. But another little drama originated in the same place recently.

Our cat Lottie, which I often take for a short walk to the watersplash, somehow got a piece of discarded fishing line wrapped tightly round her tail. Freeing it required a visit to the vet – on the morning my wife and I were due to depart for a short holiday.