The clocks go back in a few weeks and chilly nights start moving in.
Thoughts will turn to energy bills or, more specifically, how to pay them.
After rampant Chancellor Reeves launched her crafty hit-and-run attack, plundering pensioners’ winter fuel benefits Labour thought the smoke would blow over eventually, but we could build a bonfire from the angry readers’ letters still rolling into the P&J.
Many pray Reeves and Starmer will come to their senses and perform a u-turn.
But backtracking is not popular among public bodies because it magnifies the poor quality and damage of the original decision.
It’s not unheard of, however.
Highlands Council has just set a shining example by u-turning in the face of sustained public condemnation over traffic plans.
More of that later.
Aberdeen City Council is in a similar bit of bother with its long-suffering citizens, but shows no sign yet of copying Inverness.
Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” would be a good Labour theme following the outcry.
It came from her Heart of Stone album, which is quite appropriate in the circumstances after their double-crossing out-of-the-blue assault on vulnerable older people.
After condemnation of the cuts and demands for a u-turn by a majority of their own members at the Labour conference, Reeves and Starmer now look more like comic duo Reeves and Mortimer.
Except it’s not funny; if they have an arrogant disregard for even their own party what do they think of the rest of us?
Many pensioners will be counting the pennies with no winter fuel payment
Meanwhile, in the Highlands and north-east many pensioners in our communities will be counting the pennies even if they aren’t the poorest sitting below the pension-credit breadline created by Reeves.
Their anger won’t go away; it will fester and worsen as bills bite and tragic stories emerge potentially about people forced to choose between heating or eating.
They never knew voting for Labour would take the clothes off their backs.
It hasn’t for everyone, of course.
Starmer and Reeves still have their free luxury designer outfits donated by wealthy party backers to keep them warm.
And the cost of Starmer’s free VIP English premiership football tickets would heat an elderly community in the Highlands for months.
A P&J letter writer alluded to Orwell’s warnings in Animal Farm when complaining about the winter fuel scandal.
Both this catastrophe and the double-standards over self-serving Labour freebies made me think of one of the classic story’s most famous quotes.
An edict from the rulers to the masses that “some are more equal than others” (meaning the leadership, of course).
In this respect, Labour have fallen quickly into the same trap as Tories and SNP – being perceived as totally out of touch with ordinary people.
Almost like Animal Farm, where the masses begged for change and found the new leaders just as bad as the old.
Just before Starmer’s victory, I wrote that we might be begging to be rescued soon.
Now pensioners shivering over energy bills in Scotland realise the Labour slogan “Change” meant short-changing old people by picking their pockets.
Labour leader in Scotland Anas Sarwar must be feeling twitchy; I would be in his shoes (which I presume he pays for).
Full-scale demolition of SNP is not a foregone conclusion now
Starmer’s lightweight landslide victory (huge in seats, but shallow in voting numbers) was a knockout blow for the SNP’s Westminster contingent.
It was supposed to pave the way for a full-scale demolition of the SNP by Scottish Labour at the Holyrood parliamentary election in 2026.
It doesn’t look like a foregone conclusion now after Starmer’s doom and gloom warnings of worse financial punishment to come.
In fact, at this rate the Labour prime minister and chancellor might inadvertently provide a platform for an SNP victory in the Holyrood vote.
The SNP don’t look capable of reforming and reinventing themselves, but might not have to bother after the Treasury’s performance.
In the Highlands, the local council deserves praise for ordering a complete u-turn over controversial traffic plans for one of its best-known routes through Inverness – Academy Street – after a business backlash.
They backed themselves into a dead end.
But they listened to the people – they put the “you” in u-turn.
Lack of consultation seems to have been an issue – just like Aberdeen’s bus-gate farce, which dodged proper public scrutiny in advance.
Aberdeen is apparently in-hock to the Scottish Government if it tries to back out – something else which wasn’t discussed publicly in advance, as far as I am aware.
So Highlands Council has done the decent thing by setting a good example to other public bodies after accepting defeat.
It’s been quite a drama in Inverness; not on a Hollywood scale, of course.
But more of a Miracle on Academy Street.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal
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