NOW I’ve never been one for marches. Placards are not my thing. Banners do not belong in my hands. But I do know a march involves lots of people. That’s generally the point. So it was hard not to suppress a giggle at the Rally Against Debt.

This event last Saturday was organised by the Tax Payers’ Alliance and the Freedom Association, twin agitators of the right, as their response to the TUC anti-cuts protest held in March. Yes, they wanted a march, but what they got was a diminutive demo.

Reports vary, but most suggest 300 or so people turned up. Three hundred! That’s the protest equivalent of a few old friends having a moan. I bet they shuffled closer together for the photographs, like guests at a poorly attended wedding.

The TUC anti-cuts protests attracted hundreds of thousands. Now that, whatever you think of it, was indisputably a march.

So what happens during a right-wing march, at least one like this, which is not connected to the politically vile? These were ordinary conservative types, not racial hate-mongers or anything. At one point, reportedly, the brave few tried out a chant of: “What do we want? Cuts! When do we want them? Now!”

As you might expect, the organisers claimed the support of the silent majority. What a useful group this is – always on hand to reinforce a losing argument; and never likely to answer back, seeing as strictly speaking they don’t exist, being a convenient figment of the cornered imagination.

The left are better at public disgruntlement. A right-wing march doesn’t sound quite proper.

I suppose we did have the Countryside Alliance big day out, which mostly seemed to be an expression of rural distaste at the Labour Party having had the cheek to win an election (how long ago it now seems, like an era that never happened and is unlikely to do so again, unless Ed Miliband finds his dynamo).

Still, you can say one thing. Right-wing marches don’t bring places to a standstill. And that is good, for such people are usually the ones complaining when other marchers cause chaos. So this lot organised a rubbish march that inconvenienced no one. How considerate.

Apparently, the organisers compared their efforts to the US Tea Party, which is pushing things a bit. Anyway, the parallel might not be that flattering. For all its success, it remains hard not to see the Tea Party as a grassroots front for more traditional politics of the nasty kind. There will be something sharp in that grass, just you watch.

Here, to close, are some alternative slogans for a conservative-minded march… “This is the sort of thing up with which we will not put!”

“Poor people – they’ve only got themselves to blame!”

“The Big Society – we don’t know what it is, but we want it now!”

“Did you buy that placard from Boden?”

“I can’t believe it’s not privatised already!”

“Sick people? They’re just an opportunity to make a packet!”

• THAT last one, by the way, was inspired by reports that a senior adviser to David Cameron says it would improve the NHS to charge patients. Mark Britnell was reported as saying that future reforms would show “no mercy” to the NHS and offer a “big opportunity” for private health companies.

This story appeared the day before Mr Cameron made his latest “I love the NHS” speech. In this, the Prime Minister went on about how the NHS can only be saved by reform, which is funny in a way, because never has an institution been reformed so thoroughly and so often. Every new batch of politicians changes it. Labour, as it happened, did a pretty good job on health (are we allowed to say such things any more?) but now the Coalition wants to rip everything up and start again.

So who to believe: Mr Cameron in smoothly reassuring but worryingly generalising mood or a Government adviser who sees the NHS as a market for rich pickings?

Now where’s that placard?