Neither since the starting gun was fired by Prime Minister Tony Blair nor in the protracted “phoney war” before the election date was announced have Dundee’s councillors seemed inclined to try and score political points off each other in the council debating chamber.

Very different from years gone by when it was possible to tell that an election was in the offing by the rise in temperature of the council debates.

This column has, in the past, been critical of the behaviour in the council chamber at election time with incessant, at times almost hysterical, rubbishing of every utterance by a political opponent.

While there is no yearning for those days to return it is faintly disturbing to find no-one sufficiently energised by the approaching polling day to attempt to introduce a little party political propaganda.

Perhaps, as far as the General Election is concerned, it has something to do with the fact that many of the issues which matter to people in their daily lives — like education and health — are now controlled in Scotland at Holyrood rather than by Westminster.

However, given that the turnout for the Scottish Parliament elections has been nothing to shout about either, that may be too facile an explanation.

Since fewer and fewer people seem to be willing to vote for any of the political parties maybe they should be given the option of registering that view by putting a section on the ballot paper which allows for an official abstention.

That would provide evidence of how many people are don’t knows as opposed to don’t cares.