MANY people have compared the summer of 2022 with that of 1976. For those who have seen near continual sun (and I know not all have) and who can remember both, as I can, there is a comparison to be made. But let’s not overdo it.

First off, in ‘76 I did not suffer Covid related illnesses for most of the summer.

Second, as I recall it, the summer of '76 was pretty optimistic. We had inflation of 26%, for sure, but on the other hand we had a government that by and large wanted to protect people from the consequences of that and a trade union movement that was very largely effective in ensuring most people did not suffer.

Third, we had people in government who were competent, and in whom people could believe. And if anyone did not believe in the government itself then the Opposition was similarly populated by people who had a good idea of what politics was all about and who (because Thatcher had yet to make a big impact) seemed to care.

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In 2022 we have been in denial on Covid, whilst pessimism and even outright fear quite reasonably dominates public sentiment. In addition, politics in general is not endowed with a lot of talent, most especially in the mainstream Westminster parties. The result is that I do not feel now as I did in the summer of ‘76, even having allowed for a little growing up that might have gone on in the years since. I was 18 back then.

We have every reason to worry in 2022. The Tory leadership election has left us without a UK government for months as we face the biggest economic crisis of my lifetime. Worse, what we know is that whoever leads the Tories next week, they will wash their hands of what is happening. They will say that people’s inability to pay fuel bills is beyond their control. And then they will say that the consequences must be whatever they are.

This is what really frightens me. I have never known politics like this. You might call it the politics of neglect, where a politician simply denies responsibility for an issue that is very obviously their responsibility to solve, knowing that the population has no hope of managing it.

I never thought anything like this might happen and yet it is. And in itself that is the big difference between UK politics now and in 1976. In ‘76 we had hope. This was not just hope that we would get through any crisis, but that politicians would do all they could to try to solve it as quickly as possible.

In 2022 we do not have that hope. Long experience, from the time when Thatcher deliberately engineered a massive recession in the early 80s to smash British industry and break the power of the unions onwards, has taught us to be used to governments that seem set upon making life worse for most people (and I know Labour was not as bad, but the Tories have dominated this era).

This policy of confrontation, where government acts in the interests of big business and the wealthy but not in the interests of anyone else, has now reached the point where the government is simply abandoning the country to its fate whilst letting energy companies and banks prosper from our misfortune.

This is not just the politics of neglect though - this is bankrupt politics. It is the politics of denial that there is anything that can be done when it is glaringly obvious there is. That this type of politics cannot continue is as obvious as the fact that, without a massive U-turn from Truss, there is going to be uncontrollable anger this winter. So what is needed is a politics that does better than this.

One obvious way to secure that politics is to reject Westminster. That may well be necessary, but it’s not sufficient to achieve this goal. The SNP leadership is dominated by the same type of economic (and so at the end of the day, political) thinking as many in the Tories and in Labour. In other words, the priorities of business dominate their thinking. This must change if the cycle of oppression into which politics has now taken us is to end.

It is possible to do both economics and politics and put people and planet before business and profits, whilst not denying the importance of the private sector economy in many sectors. That requires three things: One is economists who will say this is possible; The second is politicians who believe them; The third is people who will vote for them.

Might that be possible in an independent Scotland? To have reasons to be optimistic you have to believe it might be, which is vital when current economic thinking cannot deliver what Scotland needs any more than Westminster can.