LIKE going back to school, it is the time of year when Holyrood returns.
But I am afraid to say that, unlike the hope our daughters and sons have as they look at the year ahead, MSPs return with heavy hearts.
The Scottish Government’s record has not improved. Indeed it has got worse.
Almost one million of us are on NHS waiting lists – 100,000 of us have been for more than a year.
A quarter of a million of us are on waiting lists for a home.
Indeed, we live in a nation where even police officers have to buy their own uniforms.
First Minister John Swinney seems to ignore all of these real problems and instead is gearing up for an election campaign he never intended to fight.
He and his spin doctors, instead of addressing Scotland’s needs, seem focused on manufacturing a personality for the First Minister none of us have seen a trace of since he came into politics.
John Swinney retired from front line politics, just after Nicola Sturgeon stepped down after a visit from Police Scotland.
Since his return I have to say I have not noticed any upturn in achievements or in Scotland’s fortunes.
When this man, the Victor Meldrew of Scottish politics, tells me that Scotland is a better place on his watch I have to say, I don’t believe it.
We desperately need a new direction as a nation.
Scotland has more money to spend per head of population than any other part of Britain, yet the SNP squander it.
We see no benefit as the nationalists waste cash on bureaucracy and pet projects.
John Swinney is asleep on his own watch.
Unable to defend his own record he is now trying to get the SNP corpse to twitch by promising another referendum none of us wants and which will meet none of our real needs.
Anas Sarwar has a plan to make sure the NHS waiting lists that John Swinney ignores are sorted.
He wants to address the attainment gap in our schools that means children from poorer homes achieve less than those who are better off, that Nicola Sturgeon said she would solve before she got caught up with writing her own unreliable memoir and working on her own myth.
Scottish Labour has a plan to solve our housing emergency.
And on our watch police officers will not have to buy their own uniforms to do their jobs.
All summer I have worked with constituents getting a distinctive understanding of the problems all of us face.
Unlike the complacency of John Swinney, I share Anas Sarwar’s hunger for change.
Tomorrow has to be better than today.
After next May’s election, when we go back to school at Holyrood, I hope with all my heart it is to start to build a new future for Scotland, for all of us, with a Scottish Labour government and Anas Sarwar as our First Minister.
It is time for a new direction.