This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

The leak is about to become a flood.

All across the west, political parties once seen as left-wing have been losing supporters, repelled by what can only be called an addiction to dogmatic centrism: a near nihilistic belief in a failed status quo, and a refusal to engage with any radical socially-democratic solutions to what ails society.

Indeed, parties which were once considered left-wing have drifted further and further to the right. It would not be absurd to say that the Labour Party of today would sit comfortably alongside a pre-Thatcherite form of ‘One Nation’ Conservatism.

The working class has been failed, overlooked in favour of big business. Poverty has grown rapaciously. Society feels broken. The coming of Keir Starmer offered the briefest moment of hope – that the left might return and address the failure and rot – but that was quickly extinguished.

In England, Starmer seemed to believe that anyone on the left was Labour’s property by right. After all, if left-wing voters didn’t like what he had to offer, then where would they go? Reform? Greens? LibDems?

Left-wingers would rather burn their ballot than back Farage; the Greens – still in the eyes of many – fail to convince; and LibDems unforgivably entered coalition with the Tories.

There was a sense in England that the left was captured, a despairing hostage forced to tag along behind the........

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