Make no mistake, the cost-of-living crisis is a national emergency on the scale of the pandemic. People are facing the worst fall in living standards since the war.
Millions of people are already struggling and it’s going to get worse as summer turns to winter. Remember the urgency of both Scotland’s governments during the pandemic - the previously unthinkable became policy as people did everything they could to help.
They didn’t always get it right, but it was plain to see they accepted the urgency of the crisis. Today we stand on the brink of another emergency.
The threat to life isn’t as great, although we should be in no doubt inaction will cost lives. But the human suffering and economic damage we are facing is almost unimaginable.
Unlike Covid the crisis here isn’t biological, it is political. The solution won’t be found through the genius of our scientists, but in the willingness of our politicians to act.
Earlier this month BP reported mammoth profits of £6.9bn for a single three month period.
British Gas owner Centrica reported half-year group profits of £1.3bn, five times more than they’d made just a year earlier.
Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, reported record profits of nearly £10bn for the April-to-June period. Triple what it made just 12 months earlier.
While energy companies profits skyrocket, there are fears people’s energy bills could soon pass the £5000 mark.
Let’s not delude ourselves - at that price millions of people in the UK will face impossible choices.
Last week Gordon Brown set out just some of the ways we could help people now, this week my friend Keir Starmer will do the same.
Just this weekend we have seen his call to make price rises against the law.
Every moment of political delay from the Tories - and yes from the SNP - makes that crisis worse.
Let me give you a real world example.
SNP and Tory delays in backing a windfall tax earlier this year meant taxpayers missed out on £1.9 billion in cash which could now be being spent to tackle the crisis.
When first Labour proposed action to help those in need both the SNP and the Tories failed to back it.
That wasn’t without consequence, there were 193 days between Labour proposing this measure and the Tories finally introducing a watered down version of it.
And that mean more oil giant profits lining shareholders pockets while Scots struggle.
People across the UK deserve better than two governments trivialising our politics and ignoring the issues that matter, while they bicker.
The total lack of ideas and ambition from both our governments has been all too clear.
By the end of the year, the price of your energy bill could have gone up by almost 200 per cent.
But while countless households are facing the impossible choice between heating and eating, oil and gas giants are raking in billions of pounds of profits and being handed tax breaks.
It’s clear more of the same won’t do. We need a response that matches the scale of this crisis. Both our governments – in Holyrood and in Westminster – have a moral duty to rise to that challenge.
Nurses deserve a fair pay rise
During the pandemic, while Scotland’s nurses and healthcare workers battled on the frontline of the pandemic, many of us took to our doorsteps to applaud them.
It was a gesture - when the public could do little else - of our gratitude of their sacrifices to keep us safe.
There was a collective sense that they were owed a debt.
Fast forward a year, and as the cost living crisis bites, SNP ministers want to run out on the tab.
On Friday, Scotland’s nurses and healthcare workers moved one step closer to going on strike.
Scotland’s nurses haven’t taken industrial action in living memory.
Let’s be clear, they have been pushed to this by minister’s denying them a fair pay deal.
That nurses are been driven to foodbanks after working long shifts saving lives is nothing short of shameful.
The SNP Government must sit down with the workers and listen to their concerns, not return to the politics of grievance and division in a desperate attempt to hide their political and moral failure.
When Scotland clapped it was a message, a thank you to those doing lifesaving work, but also a message to the Scottish Government - that they must value those who kept our nation going.
The SNP cannot now let Scotland’s call for recognition and reward be ignored.
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