GIVEN the year we have had, it would be easy to think that the Labour Party is approaching this year’s Scottish conference in a downbeat mood.

A Tory government at Westminster and nationalist ascendancy in Scotland is a miserable state of affairs.

There is no getting away from it, the past year has been terrible for Labour across Britain, but especially in Scotland, where we had our worst ever general election result. However, there are now grounds for optimism that we just didn’t see coming on that bleak and glooming Friday morning in May.

Jeremy Corbyn’s victory has given us back our mojo. He has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to join or become associated with Labour again.

In Scotland his win has seen us double our membership.

He has given all our members, existing and new, a hope and optimism that frankly was missing before.

His rejection of austerity — which, remember, is a political choice and not an economic necessity — has made clear our economic position. But of course it’s about much more than simple economics, Jeremy’s election as leader has made it clear exactly whose side we are on and reminded us all in the Labour Party why and how we exist in the first place.

His intention, working alongside John McDonnell and Tom Watson as well as the wider movement, to rebalance our economy on the side of the millions not the millionaires marks a long awaited paradigm shift that people have been crying out for.

Of course we had another internal election this summer in Scotland. The election of our new Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale and Alex Rowley as deputy leader has energised the Scottish party.

Intent, just as Jeremy is, on redemocratising the party, there is no doubt that they are both approaching their roles with a vigour that augurs well for the future wellbeing of the party in Scotland.  

They understand the policy ground that we need to be on. They get the fact that we need to come up with policies needed to help the huge numbers of Scots who are struggling to get through life from one day to the next.

This past week has seen the publication of the health inequalities commission I started two years ago.

I was clear that this report should not focus on another analysis of the already overanalysed scandal of stubborn and persistent unequal health outcomes, and that it should concentrate on policy solutions to halt and tackle this scourge (something that those supposed great progressives, the SNP, have failed to achieve after eight years of government).

I am glad to say that this is exactly what the authors, led by Dr David Conway, did.

They have provided a set of wide-ranging policy solutions, from colleges to transport, housing to welfare, local government to mental health services, earnings and employment to early years education and almost everything else in between. It is, in other words, just the type of policy document, driven by Labour values of decency, justice, fairness and equality, that will help restore faith in the Labour Party to again be the party of working people.

I am delighted that the current Scottish Labour leadership team agree that this is the direction of travel we need, and that it is just the type of platform that will challenge the rhetoric of the talk left, act right SNP.

The deep-seated contradictions in the SNP also offer hope to Labour in Scotland.

On the the face of it people will think I’m barking in saying that.

But the past year has shown us that nothing lasts forever and political truths and certainties are always only transitory. Its current dominance will crumble when, as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (pictured) suggests they do, people judge the SNP government on its record.

It is only a matter of time before people start to see through its constitutional posturing and judge it on its day-to-day failings. In health, spending is down, waiting times and other targets are missed and spending on the private sector is up.

All the while it is presiding over a crisis in social care demonstrated by the rocketing numbers of delayed discharges in our hospitals.

In education, teacher numbers are down, educational attainment figures show a chasm between the results of well-off kids and the rest, while its record on colleges is abysmal, with fewer resources and students, fewer  staff and reduced teaching hours.  

In justice the new centralised police service has been described as a shambles by the unions, while the SNP’s supposed progressive credentials are again called into question by its refusal to hold inquiries into the behaviour of the police in Scotland during the miners’ strike and the blacklisting of Scottish construction workers who dared join a trade union and/or question health and safety standards on building sites.

In local government 40,000 jobs have been lost and this past week we have seen numerous councils propose further redundancies as a result of the undemocratic imposition of a council tax freeze and central government cuts to their budgets.  

Its supposed radicalism is also being exposed. Remember this is a party that has not introduced one redistributive policy in eight years.

It had an economic plan built around oil and low corporation tax (it recently celebrated George Osborne’s latest cut to corporation tax) and is wary of public ownership, often hiding behind the EU as it puts public contracts out to tender.

Of course its disciplined machine is going to come under some pressure with rumblings from its new, increased membership.

On fracking it is preparing to capitulate to Ineos while its grassroots tell them to “frack off.”

And, as far as “indyref2” is concerned, the gradualist wing is going slow while the fundamentalist wing (probably most of their rank and file now) is showing signs of impatience. The on-message  SNP will do well to overcome these binds.

Shamefully the SNP is provided with left cover by the radical left, who can’t quite work out whether they are nationalists or socialists, and who, despite Corbyn’s win, apparently want most to destroy Labour and achieve independence no matter the cost to working people.

On appearances things are looking bad for Labour, but appearances can be deceptive.

Our membership has doubled and is in good spirits despite the past year. We are re-establishing our purpose to be the party of all our people — the party of fairness and of equality — while our main opponents in Scotland are being increasingly revealed as the new Establishment, failing Scotland.

Labour can regain the trust of Scots with a progressive programme and it can do so starting this weekend in Perth.

Neil Findlay is Labour MSP for Lothian.