LABOUR stood for election promising “change”, and the public has given them a powerful opportunity to deliver it.  

As ever, between different parties there will be some disagreements and there will be some common ground, but where the new Government sets out to do the right thing, I will wish them well.

But this week’s Westminster vote on the cruel two-child cap was an extremely worrying signal about the approach they’ll take to those who bring constructive pressure to bear to make them act.

There is no doubt about the brutal impact of the cap. It is among the most harsh and immoral actions of a Tory government we’re well rid of.

It has plunged hundreds of thousands of families into totally avoidable poverty, and it was rightly condemned by Labour when it was introduced.

None of this will be news to the MPs who voted against the proposal to end it, including, shamefully, every MP in Glasgow. They’ve had local residents and anti-poverty groups pleading with them to take a stand against their party leadership.

The fact is Labour might well get round to this eventually, but what’s clear from this week is that they care more about looking strong by controlling the timing of any change, than they do about the impact on people’s lives right now. Every day they delay ending this cruel policy is a day of hunger or desperation for thousands.  

The country does need change, and that means we simply can’t afford to keep such a punishing policy in place for one minute longer.

But worse still, Labour imposed a draconian punishment on the few MPs who have been trying – constructively – to put them under some modest pressure, suspending them for six months just days after the start of the new parliament. This intolerance of dissent should worry us all. No government is at its best when it treats its mildest critics with such vindictiveness.  

One of the proudest legacies of the time the Scottish Greens were in government was the decision to more than double the Scottish Child Payment.

Now worth more than £100 a month for every eligible child, it has stopped 100,000 children falling into poverty and been praised for shifting Scotland from being one of the most unequal places in Europe for a child to grow up to being one of the most equal within its first 12 months.

We built on this with more action to tackle the cost of living, like free bus travel for everyone under 22, which has already helped more than 82,000 young people across our city and hugely cut the cost of travel.  

There is no equivalent of these policies anywhere else in the UK. I believe they are a crucial part of why the Scottish Greens achieved record results all over Glasgow, but they also reflect a better way of doing politics – all these positive changes required parties to work together despite their differences. That’s the sort of change that the new UK Government should embrace.

It’s not just the lack of immediate action on child poverty which is worrying, there are so many crucial areas where this government seems to be offering business as usual.

When it comes to our environment the new GB Energy project has been announced, and if it’s done right it could have great potential. But they won’t rule out using it to subsidise the kind of nuclear power schemes that are already failing in other countries, instead of the renewables we need.

They have also refused to scrap any of the dozens of oil and gas licences that the Tories signed up to in a climate wrecking splurge shortly before they finally left office.

And while they have restored aid funding for Gaza, they are so far refusing to end the millions of pounds worth of arms sales that are fuelling the genocide. If they’re serious about a change of direction, they would immediately recognise the state of Palestine, as many other European countries are already doing.

The UK faces immense challenges, and I know that the Government has only been in place for a matter of weeks. But when ministers react with outrage at the slightest pressure on them to do better, it’s hard to trust that they will be willing to make the radical changes that are so urgently needed.

I truly hope that this government will live up to the urgency of the times we are in. But it will take more courage and more openness than they have shown in these early days.