THIS week, we saw the first Covid-19 vaccinations administered in Scotland, giving us real hope for the future. We also saw many local authority areas in Scotland reducing restrictions and gave each other a much-needed pat on the back for all of our efforts over the last weeks and months.

Well done to all who have been continuing to follow the health advice and the FACTS guidance. I know it hasn’t been easy and some people find it more difficult than others, but please continue to do all you can to keep your friends and families safe.

I have seen a lot of talk about getting back to “normality” as we combat Covid-19 globally. While I welcome the wonderful news of a vaccine and the pressure this will relieve on our own economy, businesses, workers and our healthcare sector, it is not normality we want to get back to, but a progressive post-Covid future for Scotland that we need to build. Welcome to the new normal!

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If you think back to normal” Britain before March 2020, I seem to remember a tyrant of a Prime Minister obsessed with delivering a hard Brexit that completely ignores the will of the Scottish people. Normality was Universal Credit and food banks; normality was food and medicine shortages being a real possibility; normality was spending billions on nuclear weapons.

Normality was bombing and supplying the Middle East with weapons; normality was having the lowest pension anywhere in Europe.

These are issues that we faced before Covid-19 and they are still very much issues that we continue to face as part of the United Kingdom.

Covid-19 has brought many disparities in our society to the forefront. Our NHS staff have become the true heroes of 2020 and rightly so. Taken for granted for too long, our healthcare workers have been at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts. No politician, movie star or football player has saved lives this year; it was the frontline NHS staff in our hospitals up and down the country that have done so.

The goalposts have indeed moved and the functional needs of society have changed.

A big rethink and a big thank you is due to all of our retail and supermarket staff who have also been on the frontline all year on low pay, working all hours under the sun to make sure that society continued to function and our basic needs, comforts and food where available.

The sacrifice that these workers make every day so we can survive should be honoured along with those of all of our cleaners, security guards, transport operators and all the other many low-paid workers that have put their health on the line and made living in 2020 Scotland that little bit more convenient for us all.

Back in March we had a shortage of toilet roll in the UK. Yes, toilet roll. Consumerism and commercialism have long created wounds which have only been exacerbated by this pandemic. We know that shopping local is vital as we recover and supporting small businesses in your community will go a big way to not getting back to normality, but for building a better future.

We have an opportunity to radically change our thinking when it comes to policy making. My colleagues and I have continually called for Rishi Sunak to look into a Universal Basic Income; it would have gone a long way towards building for this better future.

Instead we have millions of people excluded from support, record unemployment, people plunged into debt, food bank use increasing and in some cases people becoming homeless due to UK Tory Government policies.

Automation and robotics are developing at considerable speed and it is not just a far-off concern anymore that unemployment will rise as more and more jobs become replaced by machines.

We must build for a future where we put the environment and health at the heart of everything we do. Policies that will actually protect people’s incomes and at least attempt to give people life satisfaction instead of only life struggles.

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At the moment we fill the holes where we can from the UK Treasuries austerity-driven mindset. The economic debate for an independent Scotland is one that will continue.

However UBI, participatory budgeting and making our own strong local economies become more realistic and economically plausible with the full powers of independence.

Covid-19 has changed how some jobs work practically and companies have had to adapt to staff working from home. It has raised awareness of the amount we work. Should and could more work be done from home? Should we have shorter working weeks? Is it the end of working 9-5?

All good questions that need answers, but I can’t imagine Boris Johnson and his Cabinet would be too keen to change any of this or even entertain the need for it, as we all try to get back to “normal”.

The reality is these policy positions and progressive ideas for the future that we all want to work towards are never going to get the real attention they need from Westminster.

This is why we must begin to paint the picture of a better future that we are recovering towards, a post-Covid future with life satisfaction and happiness at the forefront.