Easter breaks oddly this year. Having got itself into full on debating frenzy on Thursday , thoughts turn to the sombre events we commemorate on Good Friday.

In the meantime, we wait. For pensions people, the wait is particularly potent as we have but two days (and a bank holiday) before Freedom Day. All this seems peculiar, the waiting is the hardest part.

In medieval times, the intervening period between the crucifixion and resurrection was when Christ “harrowed hell”. Since this idea is not in the bible, it is seldom mentioned in church, but it forms a ection of Langland’s Vision of Piers Plowman from which the Pension Plowman takes his cue.

“Harrowing’ in this sense means the despoiling or disruption and the idea is that Christ spent the time between dying and being re-born, releasing righteous souls trapped in limbo. Souls such as Adam and Eve and other iconic figures of the old testament.

Dante and Langland used the concept of hell  to outline their views on what had gone wrong with society and point the finger of blame in particular directions.

We write things down to make them happen, whether our lists are for shopping or for tweeting.

Lists of those in hell who should be damned and saved are a feature of accounts of Christ’s harrowing.  We consign those things we hate to our imaginary room 101 and the listing of them give us control over them.

This is the process of the manifesto, a list of things that political parties would either consign to hell or actualise on earth.

So Easter Saturday is a good day for sorting the sheep out from the goats. I want to harrow my personal hell and kick a lot of crap downstairs. I want to make a few things happen after Easter.