FOR some time now, the New Year has for me fallen into a bit of a routine. Hogmanay happens also to be my birthday, and drink, as they say, was taken. A low key affair though, our house had something working on us, and we stayed at home.

The wind howled outside when I ventured out at the bells to blow on the post horn. For another year the neighbours demonstrated their tolerance. As this little ritual took place, there was to have been the big Hogmanay in Edinburgh.

The city has become synonymous with the celebration, over the years, as council and businesses alike cash in on the picture-postcard sight of the castle illuminated by fireworks after the ramparts had echoed to the sound of the big gun.

Not this year though. The wind was too high and the concerts and fireworks would have to wait for another year as confused tourists no doubt wandered the streets in search of what they had come for.

Over £800,000 a year is now paid by the council to the private enterprise which organised these events, events which independent councillor Ross McKenzie told me earlier this week were “shit” and “devoid of culture.” He’d like to see that money put into community facilities to support local events formed and led in those communities, and he noted that those forlorn tourists might have actually had something to go to with that approach.

He’s right. That sort of money might be little more than a rounding error in the budget of a council the size of Edinburgh’s, but it’s a lot to the hubs of our communities so often struggling for the want of these crumbs off the table.

Getting there is another matter though. There’s the small issue of a newly signed contract, and I suspect the greater barrier, a culture in our town halls and government which seek to out-spectacular each other and everything that has gone before.

A three-year contract shouldn’t be looked upon as a barrier though, but instead as time to work with communities for something truly transformative; a celebration running from every front door, close, and street in the city which everyone is invited to build, not pay through the nose to attend. The results might just be spectacular, whether or not they make better telly.

The city came perilously close to losing its People’s Story Museum last year for the want of just £260,000. A solid community-led campaign appealed to the city’s councillors and won the day. It has now reopened and the challenge now moves on to winning investment in the future of a place which could be a genuine centre of working-class confidence.

This isn’t separate from the debate on Hogmanay though, it runs to its heart. In whose name is this, or any other, city run?

It’s a discussion my own city will have to wrestle with once again when the Commonwealth games returns in 2026. In many a council meeting I’ve heard how Glasgow competes with other cities to win big events, to have movies shot there and the like. It inevitably plays to our chauvinism: “we can do that better than Liverpool/Manchester/Birmingham!” Delete as appropriate.

In place of an industrial strategy, the plan to manage the decline of heavy industry in Glasgow was, from the 1980s, to sell culture. It still is. There were upsides to this, and there were genuine moments when a renewed confidence broke through, or the real Glasgow peeked through the new velvet drapes, but too much of the city still lies behind them, even after all these years.

This reached a crescendo at the 2014 Commonwealth games. The true legacy of these events is always — and rightly — contested. As a former bike racer, I still marvel at the velodrome that has given thousands of kids of all backgrounds from all over Scotland a chance to feel the buzz of the track, but national facilities and a cultural programme aren’t the whole story — not by a long chalk.

Big events bring something else with them too, sadly.

Among the meticulous planning, a working group involving local, national and international agencies had to be set up to ward against trafficking and sexual exploitation. Being informed of the need for its existence shook me out of my naivety, but in a world dominated by men and capital, I should really have known better.

More than a decade later I was fulfilling the other part of my New Year routine, heading down the M6 to see the in-laws.

Somewhere in the southern uplands, we caught Radio 4’s World at One programme just in time to hear a discussion of Oldham council’s request for an inquiry into past handling of child sexual exploitation in the area, bringing back that memory from 2014.

Incredulity abounded that the under-secretary of state for safeguarding and violence against women and girls had refused the request despite appearing to support the move before the election — the presenter apparently seemingly unaware of the nature of the minister in question, one Jess Phillips.

While I wasn’t surprised at the minister’s inconsistency, or unwillingness to defend the position, something else genuinely did surprise me. No, not the sound of a Tory shadow minister six months out of office saying an inquiry should have happened years ago — that sort of nonsense is a given — but the time devoted to discussing the views of the co-chair designate of the proposed new US department of government efficiency.

Setting aside that his new role sounds like something straight out of Yes Minister, billionaire Elon Musk has stepped up to defend the working-class girls in Oldham from the “rape gangs” he claims Keir Starmer failed to deal with while head of the Crown Prosecution Service — how gallant of him.

Given his patron, president-elect Donald Trump was recently deemed in court to be liable for sexual assault, Mr Musk’s statements on his platform X (the hell-hole formerly known as Twitter) appeared particularly “courageous,” as Sir Humphrey might have said.

The talking heads on the programme were dutifully asked for their views on this randomer’s post, giving up valuable airtime which could have been better used with commentary from someone with the merest knowledge of the situation, and never once engaged in what his real motives may be.

I would always err on the side of an inquiry, but here we are again, with broadcast media giving platforms to the irrelevant, far-right, bad faith actors while ministers walk off the battlefield.

The same process — alongside, of course, the sheer long-term neglect of the working class by those elected to promote its interests — put Nigel Farage in Parliament. An irrelevant, millionaire commodities trader was put on TV over and over, turning the quintessential Establishment man into the voice of the disaffected, crowning him with a self-fulfilling artificial relevance that meant no TV producer appeared to be able to conceive of a political discussion without him, after all, he was so entertaining…

Now the man Mr Farage openly states is looking for ways around political funding rules to plough cash into his party is getting the same treatment. What could possibly go wrong?

While they argue either explicitly or implicitly of some racial aspect to the abuse that has gone on, it neatly sidesteps a universal truth of such crimes.

Justice for those who have suffered abuse seems a long way off yet, because we have barely scratched the surface in facing that truth.

Abusers and the far right both rely upon patriarchy, on deference, and on silence for their existence — three ills alive and well on our TV screens, radio, and sadly in government.

Unaddressed concerns, the far-right unchallenged, and an obsession with distant spectacle are a poisonous brew.

The antidote?

Speak up for your community, for your class, build platforms for those who would be silenced and, above all, bow to none.