Opposing things can be intoxicating but real political change must mean more than wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.

Where have the characters gone from our political scene? Even at a time of great tumult across Europe, there is little sense that the new politics has either strong leadership or an identifiable ideology. Like the Grand Old Duke of York, the Greek radicals Syriza marched its supporters up to the top of the hill before marching back down with a deal that, if anything, seems worse than the one they started with.

The much-vaunted Arab Spring, a “revolution” that wasn’t for some nations and a recipe for bloody chaos for Syria, carried no coherent message. The Tunisian uprising was sparked by the suicide of a small business owner frustrated by corruption and bureaucracy. Egypt’s “spring” has resulted in military rule. Plus ca change. Since 2008, we have seen groups like Occupy protest against pampered, protected banks. Spain has the emergent Podemos and Greece has Syriza. Sinn Fein have emerged as a powerful force in the Irish Republic, where a generation ago they were nowhere. In Scotland, it is the SNP that seek the mantle of progressive politics.

Political scientist Craig McAngus reports that thousands of Scots have been radicalised because of last year’s referendum campaign. The parties of “protest” (or government, in the case of the SNP) articulate their positions broadly as “anti-austerity”. In other countries, particularly Scandinavia, the pendulum is swinging to the right, with support for anti-immigration parties.

Some of that shift stems from the same general, not always wellarticulated, frustration about the economy, the rise of corporatism and the bankers’ free-for-all.

Broadly, people and parties know what they are “against” but they are generally ideology-free. Three decades ago the left was struggling with Thatcherism and its consequences for the industrial working-class.

While Labour and Tories slugged it out for hearts and minds, the industrial workplace was different. Most factories had a shop stewards’ committee, and most committees included a Communist. They were easy to spot; usually the intellectual-looking ones standing over the shoulder of their convener. For decades, leading Communists were prominent in the Scottish union movement. Jimmy Reid and Jimmy Airlie were Communists when they led the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’ work-in. The Scottish mineworkers’ leader and prominent party member was Michael McGahey.

Such men, drawn from the pit and the factory floor, were strategic thinkers who ran tactical campaigns. They tended to be well-read, strongly motivated and extremely patient. Many decent Communists literally died waiting for revolution in Britain.

Who are their successors? At a time when street protests resemble anarchic parties and it is so easy to “get angry” without logging out of your Twitter account, there seems to be very little analysis behind the noise.

Opposing things can be intoxicating but, even today, real political change must mean more than wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, especially one probably manufactured in a sweat-shop within a former Communist country managed by the running dogs of one-party capitalism.

‘‘ Most factories had a shop stewards’ committee, and most committees included a Communist