Bill Jamieson: Sturgeon Groat may be least of big changes to come

Forty years ago this week Margaret Thatcher came to power – and 20 years ago this week Tony Blair was catapulted into Downing Street. Both marked a sea-change in voter mood. Now we look set for another one just as convulsive.

Treasury Chief Secretary Liz Truss senses something big is happening (Picture: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty)

Whatever else the post-Brexit era may bring, voters look poised to signal a desire for change that goes far beyond a rejection of the politics that brought the Brexit stalemate.

Earlier this week, shadow Chancellor John McDonnell talked of his desire for an economic revolution. The possibility of a Labour-SNP coalition cannot be ruled put.

An independent Scotland with a separate currency “as soon as practicable”? Far from inconceivable. There is a restive if not sulphurous mood across the electorate, one far from confined to the SNP and the Labour Left.

“It looks to me,” says Jim O’Neill, a former Conservative Treasury minister, “the message from the British public is: enough.”

And says Treasury Chief Secretary Liz Truss, “I do think there something is happening, something big ... We went through a few years – the Blair years, the Cameron years – where it was all about managerial politics. Now we are having a more fundamental debate about our economy.”

Having to settle our Amazon purchases via a drop-down menu of three currencies including the Sturgeon Groat begins to look the least of it.