Louise Gilmour: Let us hope for the best because it’s not the hope that kills us. It is the lack of it

For most Scottish voters, like most Scotland supporters, it is the hope that kills us.

At tournaments and UK elections, we kick off bright-eyed and trudge off bedraggled.

The definition of insanity is said to be doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result but maybe, just maybe, this time will be different.

There is all to play for in Germany and, although it’s only half time in this election campaign, it is not going to penalties.

With every day that passes and every new way the Tories find to shoot their toes off, it is becoming less about the possibility of a Labour victory and more about its margin.

That is a little unsettling for the many Scots who have voted so often to be rid of shambolic Tories only to watch aghast as they lurched back into power.

Not, apparently, this time as Sir Keir Starmer inches towards Downing Street while supporters dare to dream – not just of a Labour government at Westminster but of a really good one.

They are even beginning to think about 1945 when, on the rubble of war, Labour built the NHS. Or 1997, when it imposed the minimum wage and lifted one million children out of poverty.

Those governments were dauntless and ambitious but, come July 5, Labour might have the numbers to be just as bold.

Franklin D Roosevelt set the pace for every new president and prime minister in 1933 when he drove through 15 major bills in his first 100 hurtling days in the White House.

The Labour leader might be baby-stepping towards Downing Street, afraid to stumble when so close, but his party’s manifesto still glints with ambition and hints at the scale of change that might be possible.

The New Deal For Working People, for one, should restore many of the employment rights stripped away by the Tories, and has the potential to increase pay, secure jobs, and reward good employers.

Labour’s manifesto could have gone further, of course, but those promises, carefully crafted not to scare any horses or undecided voters, must not be the limit of its ambition.

Anyway, after 14 years of such cruel and incompetent government, perfect should not be the enemy of good.

The polls might tighten, things can happen, but Labour could soon landslide into power with an unexpected but huge opportunity.

A million things can slow the momentum of any new government and, in Scotland, we know about high hopes crashing on the rocks of reality.

Nicola Sturgeon took charge in 2014 with the political strength and public goodwill to do something special, to leave a legacy.

Judge me on education, she insisted, promising to transform our schools and the life chances of our children.

Two years later, her head turned by the Brexit vote and dreams of another referendum, she had squandered her political capital and driven the country into a cul-de-sac where we bawled about the constitution for nine years and did not turn a wheel.

So it is understandable that Labour strategists are poring over analysis explaining why centre-left governments have been failing around the world.

There will be lessons to learn but the party must not risk becoming paralysed by power, so worried about failing that it does not dare to succeed.

Of course, parlous public finances might constrain ministers and make the big stuff difficult but difficult is not impossible. Difficult is doable.

After recent years, we would be foolish not to prepare for the worst but, for once, let us hope for the best because, really, it is not the hope that kills us. It is the lack of it.

Louise Gilmour is GMB Scotland secretary