IF you were very, very observant you would know that someone called David Davis has been replaced by someone called Theresa May as chairman of something called the Conservative Party.

We have no comment to make on whether this is a good or bad thing because the Conservative Party at the moment is so far off the radar that we haven't bothered to think about them.

It is, though, quite amazing that Mr Davis' rancorous demotion should come during a week in which the third part of the foot-and-mouth report was published.

Any opposition worth its salt - and worth its self-styled image as the protector of rural England - would have been falling over itself to ridicule the report's mealy-mouthed conclusions and to condemn the Government: for all its failings, the Anderson report does paint a picture of panic and chaos at the heart of the Government when foot-and-mouth broke out.

But instead, the Tories were, once again, falling out among themselves. There was barely a peep about foot-and-mouth which ravaged the countryside only last year.

But then why should anyone give politics and politicians much credence at the moment? This week, while stock markets plunged and ordinary working people's pensions disappeared, the politicians were voting themselves an enhanced pension package that the taxpayer will pay for.

And where was this fellow Davis, by all accounts a senior figure within the Conservative Party, when such a controversial decision - surely another opportunity to attack the Government - was being made?

He was away in Florida for a fortnight on holiday. His party leader - Iain Duncan Smith, in case you had forgotten - had agreed that he could take his holiday while Parliament was still sitting.

Nowadays, if parents take their children on holiday during school term time they get a stern talking to from the headteacher because lesson time is very valuable. But an MP can take a fortnight off during Parliamentary session with the sanction of his leader, presumably because he'll be missing little of value.

And they wonder why the public is becoming disillusioned with politics and is losing faith in politicians.