RECENTLY I had to watch an old edition of the current affairs programme Left, Right and Centre.

 

Broadcast by BBC Scotland at the beginning of 1992, it aimed to gauge the political temperature by speaking to a panel - and audience - of young activists.

Although of course this wouldn't have been obvious at the time, it also captured a fascinating snapshot of the current political generation in Scotland.

On the panel is a dark-haired Nicola Sturgeon, now First Minister, Murdo Fraser, a Conservative MSP since 2001, Craig Harrow, presently convener of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, and representing Labour Paul McKinney, now political producer at ITV Border.

The audience is also full of familiar faces. Looking (then as now) like a student politician, Jim Murphy challenges the panel, as do Angela Constance and Shona Robison. Douglas Alexander, currently Shadow Foreign Secretary, looks on furtively from the front row.

All the talk is of the 1992 general election (Ms Sturgeon predicts the Tories being "extinguished as a political force in Scotland"), Ravenscraig ("nationalisation is the only option," declares audience member Colin Mackay, now a leading political journalist) and the Scottish Constitutional Convention (about which Ms Sturgeon is politely dismissive). Kirsty Wark, looking ageless, chairs it all with aplomb.

Watching this also reminded me that this generation recently assumed power so seamlessly that few even noticed. On Wednesday Alex Salmond will turn 60 while Nicola Sturgeon is roughly half way through her 44th year, making her around 15 years younger than the man she describes as her "mentor". At 47, Mr Murphy is a little older, but of the same vintage.

And with a change of generation comes a shift in political priorities, so much so that the Left, Right and Centre of the programme's title are no longer adequate terms with which to describe Scottish (or indeed UK) politics.

Pre- and post-referendum they were still used of course; in 2014 the Scottish Left enjoyed a new lease of life while the new Scottish Labour leader was dismissed as "right-wing", as if Mr Murphy's position on Trident summed up his entire political philosophy. Even in 1992, however, such ideological labels were becoming problematic.

Mr McKinney, for example, was heckled for daring to be realistic about the prospects of reviving Ravenscraig after it had closed; yet few would demur from that position today. Ms Sturgeon, meanwhile, championed gender equality, then seen as a "left" issue but now very much mainstream. All those on the panel (with the exception of the Green) would now subscribe to a mixed economy rather than nationalised industries. Ms Sturgeon recently made a point of assuring Scottish business it had nothing to fear from her First Ministership. Does that make her left or right wing?

But of course members of the current political generation are all products of the Thatcher era, operating within economic terms of debate fashioned by the New Right from the mid-1970s onward. In the mid-1990s this was augmented by another orthodoxy, that the proceeds of economic growth should be used to promote social justice, while post-2007 a third orthodoxy took hold, that constitutional reform was central to the realisation of those twin aims.

Revealingly, no government - central or devolved - has actually succeeded in making any tangible progress in actually reducing inequality, which rose as a consequence of the first orthodoxy. Sure, New Labour initially made some inroads against child and pensioner poverty, while the SNP has placed the principle of universality at the heart of its programme, but in the grand scheme of things this has been little more than tinkering.

Take the Scottish Government's White Paper, much referenced throughout 2014 as if it described a completely new form of political economy; it did nothing of the sort, merely setting out various headline-grabbing tweaks to the status quo. Is that "social democracy"? Or a Blairite Middle Way? Call it what you will, it all amounts to much the same thing.

The differences, as I've argued before, are largely rhetorical, while mythology continues to shape modern politics more powerfully than residual ideology. The Great Debate of 2014, for example, consolidated the view among a section of the electorate and commentariat that Scots were indisputably "different" from the English, morally superior, more left-wing, less greedy, and so on.

Yet at the same time the referendum provided the impetus for data that revealed a very different picture, that when it comes to redistribution of wealth, welfare and taxation the average Scot isn't so far removed from the average Englishman or woman. Even on Trident it became clear Scotland was not, as the SNP often depicted it, one giant branch of the CND. Indeed, Scots feel more strongly about the devolution of Corporation Tax than unilateralism.

This is the great referendum paradox: a growing disconnect between electoral behaviour in Scotland and two major aspects of post-war politics, economics and social attitudes. In other words, as Scotland has come to resemble the rest of the UK more closely in economic and social terms, it has at the same time increasingly diverged when it comes to voting behaviour.

That can be traced all the way back to the 1960s, when the SNP first emerged as a mainstream political force at the expense of both the Conservatives and Labour. As a host of recent opinion polls demonstrate, that looks likely to continue next May. Just as the Nicola Sturgeon of 1992 dreamed of a Tory-free Scotland, her party now anticipates a Labour-free zone.

Such tensions at least keep politics interesting, even if many of today's protagonists prefer to skirt over nuance in favour of comforting myths and black-and-white certainties. This applies equally to Westminster, where the Conservatives increasingly revel in the fantasy politics of promised tax cuts amid further austerity and out-of-control borrowing. There too, messaging trumps harsh realities.

Personally, 2014 was an invigorating year, full of stimulation, activity and events to chew over, all essential fuel for a political journalist. I see the pro-independence website Bella Caledonia has nominated me as the Pointiest Pointyheid in Scottish life in its Indyref Awards. This I take as a (doubtlessly unintended) compliment, for there has been much to be pointy-headed about.

A narrative has now taken hold that what took place during 2014 was almost entirely good and wholesome and uplifting. In part it was, but it's important not to lose sight of all that wasn't so edifying, not least increasing tribalism, journalist baiting, reductive discourse (vote Yes to end austerity!) and the quixotic view that tackling deeply complex political and economic problems requires little more than a cross on a ballot paper and positive thinking.

Those in the political class of 1992 are all talented professional politicians: slick, competent and phenomenally hard working, but at the same time few of them have yet properly grappled, intellectually or politically, with the formidable challenges ahead. Politics is - and surely has to be - about so much more than outmaneuvering one's opponents with an expertly crafted soundbite.