For those who live and move and have their being inside Scotland and the UK’s political Panopticon there was very little peace and no goodwill during the Christmas season. At the centre of it was a series of increasingly bitter exchanges in which the battle lines of a new political war of ideas became evident. The old struggle between reactionary Toryism and radical Socialism has been replaced by the conflict between the old left and the new left.

Jim Spence, the writer and former Rector of Dundee University, told us which side he had chosen in his customary take-no-prisoners style. On the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, he took aim at what he considered to be the frauds of the new left. As the New Year approached Mr Spence seemed happy to see the back of the old one.

This was the year, he said, “when many of us on the old left woke up to the fact that the new progressive left are nihilistic, evil, workshy, despicable bastards who are contemptuous of so many ordinary grafters”. I doubt that Mr Spence will have to pull splinters out of his fundament as a result of sitting on too many fences.

At the same time as he was penning this vivid chastisement Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire owner of X, began launching a fusillade of missiles at the UK Government for what he felt was their criminal negligence in failing sufficiently to curb the activities of mainly Asian grooming gangs in towns and cities across the north of England.

Now, you’re entitled to get a little edgy about a foreign billionaire with a clearly right-wing political agenda seeking to influence the conduct of UK politics and the processes of our laws. But when he’s asking legitimate questions about the failure of our collective duty of care to thousands of vulnerable young girls who were abused then it doesn’t really matter where he lives and how much wealth he’s accumulated.

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