“HAPPY new year or so the refrain goes” … well, sorry, but fuck that! 

As a socialist, I have always believed socialism and optimism go hand in hand — you have to believe that tomorrow will be better than today. If you don’t then you’d be better pulling the covers over your head and staying in bed for the rest of your days. But as we enter 2025 my lifelong optimistic outlook that believes a better world is indeed possible is at an all-time low ebb. My God, it is difficult to be positive just now: locally, nationally and internationally the political landscape is desperately bleak. 

In our local communities public services have been hollowed out by 40 years of free-market orthodoxy and a decade-and-a half of savage austerity, budget cuts, centralisation, frozen council tax and the depoliticisation of local government. Social care is in crisis, youth work has all but disappeared, our roads and footpaths are in a dangerous state of disrepair and every council service is in a worse state than a decade ago. School class sizes are up, violence is at record levels and more than a third of children are regularly missing school. 

At a national level our NHS has record waiting lists. The Scottish government’s 12-week treatment time guarantee should be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act for wilfully misleading the public. The housing crisis is driving young people into the hands of exploitative landlords, banks and finance companies. Our train fares are among the highest in the world. There is a drugs, alcohol and mental ill-health epidemic. Rising rates of child poverty, hunger and alienation are resulting in falling levels of life expectancy and we are unable to accommodate the rising prisoner population. What a shit show.

At Westminster the election of a Labour government with a huge working majority should have heralded a new era of investment, hope and a sunnier outlook. The raising of the minimum wage, public ownership of rail and increased housing targets showed initial promise but this was soon engulfed by a litany of policy disasters — the failure to end the pernicious two-child benefit cap, the scrapping of the universal winter fuel allowance (introduced remember, by those wild-eyed lefties Gordon Brown and Tony Blair), support for the genocidal Israeli government and the scandal over the clothing, suits and football have holed the government below the waterline before the ship has left the port.

Can you imagine the media and political outrage had Jeremy Corbyn won a landslide only to find his party third in the polls within a few months? 

And to make matters worse none of the political parties appears to have a clue about how to tackle the rise of the Reform party and that odious cretin Nigel Farage.

Internationally things are even more depressing, with return of the dangerous narcissist to the White House; Marine Le Pen sitting in the wings as the French government collapses. Meanwhile war, conflict, hunger and/or political decision-making is causing huge misery for millions in Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Ukraine, Haiti, Afghanistan and Lebanon and many more countries beyond. 

Against such a miserable background, the global left must get its act together and begin to fight back. Here is my wish list of what we need for 2025.

• A meeting of the global left to discuss how we respond to the crisis in capitalism and build a genuinely credible alternative to the current chaos.
• A global peace movement for peace and justice to pressure governments into action to end conflict.
• An international peace summit to look at urgent practical global responses to help our fellow global citizens in conflict zones.
• To develop a bold, radical policy agenda rooted in the experience of working-class communities.
• That the British trade union movement must use its influence to demand the Labour government deliver for workers.
• The parliamentary left must get its act together, show some leadership and build an alternative to Starmer’s failing agenda.
• The UK and Scottish governments should adopt the right to food in legislation to prevent any citizen from going hungry.
• Our public services must be fully funded with a new tax on fixed wealth such as land, property and assets.
• We must see an end to the repeated attacks on local government and for councils to have the freedom to make their own decisions and be able to raise money to fund local services.
• We need political leaders across the globe to promote hope, health, happiness and wellbeing as political goals.

With this agenda we can begin to rebuild our society and a global community of nations that lives in peaceful co-existence. Maybe I haven’t lost my optimism after all. 

Neil Findlay is a former Labour councillor and MSP. He is a founding director of the campaigning social enterprise Unity Consulting Scotland.