I seldom go straight to a political message in writing to you but the complete about-face within its first 50 days of being elected, the new labour administration in Westminster and both our new MPs Ms Ferguson and Mr McAllister and (saying this bit, tongue in cheek), “their leader” within the Scottish parliament, Mr Sarwar, can so easily try to pass off the missing billions within their manifesto as issues “they didn’t know about”.

Basic arithmetic told anyone and everyone who bothered to look, that if they continued to blindly follow their friends the blue Tories’ “16-year-austerity dogma”, there was not enough revenue being generated to allow the UK finances to continue to support the needs of the people, never mind any attempt at reversing any of the worst blue tory policies for ordinary working-class people, their constituents.

So, we got to get ready for the bitter pill’s press conference from Sir Keir, “it’s terrible and we will need to all suffer to get back on an even keel”.

Well, no we bloody don’t, and they know it.  Rather than appease their friends within the right-wing media that helped get them elected, including their Tory backers, there are things a newly elected government can do in its very first budget to fulfil their tag line “time for change”, things like, fill the fiscal black hole left by the blue Tories with corrective measures that move more of the tax burden onto those mythical ‘broad shoulders’ at the top, those that are currently raking in massive profits.

If I randomly take Tesco for example, whose profits have shot up from £800million per year to north of £2.2billion since the pandemic; or look at the 10 top companies within the FTSE 100 and what they are paying as dividends to their shareholders, while asking for grants from both central and local governments, whilst my and their constituents are now worried about being cold this winter, or if, even though they are working their socks off, sometimes with more than one job, they are either just barely meeting or not quite meeting the family’s monthly bills and, oh my goodness, do not mention Christmas, or if their benefits will be cut in the Westminster October budget.

So much for “read Mr. Sarwar’s lips”, we were supposed to believe that there would be no austerity under labour and that all their policies were costed.

Now we find out that what he really meant was that our new colonial masters are just the same as our old colonial masters and those at the top are still pulling their strings. No windfall taxes, no closing tax loopholes that not only allow but encourage avoiding tax, and definitely no supporting, never mind enhancing the NHS in England, so that the Barnett consequential are shared with the devolved governments. But who thought that taking winter payments from our pensioners, or keeping the Tory flagship of a two-child benefit policy, not to mention looking at taxing pension lump sums, was the best platform to build recovery on?

News flash - poorer people rely on these monies and spend them, keeping their local economies ticking over.  

Read my lips, there has been no change apart from a few names on office doors and there will be some more red ties at Westminster.