Graham Martin examines the motives behind a rise in donations to foodbanks since the referendum

Pre-referendum, there was a lot of chat about how, whatever the result, Scottish politics would never be the same again. But how many of us actually believed it?

We knew that if there was a yes vote, of course things would be different, it had to be – for good or ill.

But if the vote was no? In that scenario, I have a feeling that many people chanting the “things will never be the same” mantra were doing so out of a will to power manifestation rather than real conviction.

foodbanks have become totemic, a shorthand for the austerity many believed they were voting against on 18 September

So here we are, weeks later, living in the post-no reality. Has there been change? We’ve been promised more powers, though Gordon Brown, the architect of the famous and arguably union-saving “vow”, now believes we should sign a petition politely asking for them.

Turn on your telly and there’s the Tories laying into people on benefits and promising a clamp down on civil liberties in the name of, er, freedom. Plus ça change.

But that’s high politics – the exercise of which routinely breeds apathy and cynicism. Look at this and you’d be excused for thinking nothing has changed.

But flip the stone and things look very, very different. People are on the move. I don’t remember any political commentator predicting the tremendous upsurge in activism which would result from the no vote, the filling out of the three main yes parties (SNP, Greens and the SSP) which means that, by some estimates, one in 60 people in Scotland now belongs to one of them.

The upsurge in activism which defined the last six months of the referendum debate shows no sign of abating, and this has manifested itself most poignantly in the surge of donations foodbanks have received.

There is undoubtedly political intent behind some of this – foodbanks have become totemic, a shorthand for the austerity many believed they were voting against on 18 September.

But I don’t think this can be equated with cynicism – certainly not when you stack against it the actual cynicism of one elected representative, a true wayward son of the high politics, who has questioned the motives of those involved.

Rather, it’s a conviction that things have to be different, to be better and is a carrying through of the much-stated pre-referendum mood for change.

Many – we’re back to high politics again – might have made the right mouth movements about the need for change, but you feel they didn’t really mean it. Problem is, they were taken seriously and they might now be about to feel the ground slip beneath them.

These are exciting times.