Is it really only 12 months since we were preparing for an unprecedented year of democracy?
Elections in 60 countries promised inspirational campaigning, transformative change, and bright new dawns breaking here, there and everywhere.
So, apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?
Of course, a lot of big politics happened in 2024 but did it matter? Will historians in 50 years’ time recount a lot of governments changing but little else?
We are now used to life coming at us fast, things being turned upside-down on the breakfast news and upended again before we go to bed.
Online, on news sites and social media, where every drama is a crisis and every crisis an outrage, it is all go, all the time.
In the real world? Not so much. Prime ministers and presidents thunder in and out of office as our day-to-day lives quietly continue.
A new Labour government arrived in July, for example, freighted with hope and expectation, but even ardent supporters will quietly admit its first six months have been slow and less than steady.
In Scotland, as Keir Starmer swept into Downing Street, John Swinney was being written off as a deja vu leader of a dead duck party.
The SNP had lost its way, we were assured by chin-stroking pundits, had squandered its many years in government and badly needed a long lie down in a dark room far from the levers of power.
A few months later, Starmer has caught a cold, Anas Sarwar is sneezing and the SNP is riding high in the polls with support for independence higher still.
As far-fetched as it seemed just a few months ago, Swinney could easily be First Minister after the Holyrood elections in 2026.
Then again, he could just as easily not be.
The political dial might suddenly jerk back towards Scottish Labour or perhaps Nigel Farage and Reform – polling above 12% in Scotland without apparently trying – will kick over the table. Who knows?
We were introduced to sandcastle politics in 2024, a new notion of democracy for an age when the tides of popular opinion sweep in and out with such suddenness and speed that no government can take voters for granted for long.
Of course, it can be exciting not knowing what is around the next political corner but watching the news through our fingers doesn’t put dinner on the table or pay a single bill.
It doesn’t shorten NHS waiting lists; or care for the elderly; or improve our pay and conditions; or create jobs and secure them; or educate our kids; or help them buy their first home; or all the other things that ease our lives and protect our future.
Has all the electoral sound and fury of 2024 signified anything at all? Are our families better off? Healthier? Happier? Is our country?
Embattled football managers like to tell bored and critical fans that if they “want entertainment, go to the circus” but we are all at the circus now, wincing as the wheels come off the clown cars ferrying ministers to Hampden as our front benches upend buckets of sawdust over each other.
It’s not, to be honest, as much fun as it sounds and the laughter stopped long ago.
Maybe we don’t want entertainment after all. Maybe we want real change and better politics, real ambition and better politicians. Maybe we just want to believe our governments genuinely want to improve our lives and, more importantly, know how.
Anyway, whatever happens next, wherever it goes, have a happy new year.
Louise Gilmour is GMB Scotland secretary
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