Prime Minister faced with series of tough choices
This is going to be a tough winter, with an out-of-control cost of living crisis, energy bills through the roof and double-digit inflation.
For many of our fellow Perthshire citizens it is really going to be a case of eat or heat.
With the combination of issues and impending crises, you would expect the government to be working around the clock, bringing forward solutions and formulating the policies to improve the situation, and engaging with groups and agencies.
But for the last two months there has been next to no UK government. This is a government that has been caught up in a leadership contest with a governing party that has more or less just disappeared.
The good news (if you could call it that) is that by the time you read this parliament will have reconvened and we will have a new Prime Minister.
There is practically next to no one who believes that the result will be anything other than a resounding victory for Liz Truss and she will get the keys to Number 10 along with the leadership of the UK.
So what should we expect from Truss as Prime Minister?
Well, going by her performance on the leadership hustings, not very much.
Seeking to emulate the worst excesses of Mrs Thatcher, this will be a nasty right-wing government with a laser focus on dismantling the Scottish Parliament and denying Scottish democracy.
Her first test will be in a statement on the energy crisis.
What this requires is an announcement that the cap will be frozen with solutions on how to help those already struggling to pay their bills.
But this is unlikely to be the plan. Liz Truss has instead spoken of tax cuts to alleviate the situation, an approach that favours the already well off and does little to help those in the most need.
Another‘solution’she has spoken of is to get rid of the green levy – the only part of the bill that actually deals with the very problem of over reliance on fossil fuels.
There is very little sign that a Truss government will put in place the bold strategies to halt the astronomical price hike.
Meanwhile, we live in a Scotland that is rich and self-sufficient in energy; a Scotland that has had North Sea oil and gas as an abundant natural resource since the 1970s; and which is supremely placed to take full advantage of the immense renewable resources that abound our nation.
Yet, we will have an energy policy governed by right-wing Tories who will ensure that Scotland has the highest fuel bills in Europe.
As you look at your renewed bill over the course of the next few weeks and ponder how you will meet it, ask yourself this –‘why is this happening in energy rich Scotland?’