It’s the same poison in different bottles, the same old disgusting medicine, forced down our throats by what are effectively the same grim-faced fiscal physicians.

But does it somehow feel worse this time? Maybe. Depends on how many illusions you ever had in our economic system, which demands that the weak must always suffer what they must, and those who we half-heartedly elect to administer it.

I think if anything it’s the timing that has caught many out. We always suspected – scratch that, knew – that a right-leaning Labour Party would do what capitalism’s second 11 always do once they get on the pitch.

But the speed and ferocity – and let’s face it, a certain glee – with which they have gone about completing the Tories’ unfinished business has caught the breath.

This has been reflected in Scotland as well. There is maybe a scintilla of validity in the Scottish Government’s claims that it has to hammer home half a billion worth of cuts because… well, because Westminster.

But there is always an alternative, and the best ones are the radical ones, as work done by the STUC has shown – I urge you to look that up.

I think people and organisations are now beginning to catch their breath after the fiscal blows handed out by Westminster and Holyrood.

And the mood is turning to anger among those who will have to deal with the new austerity’s primary victims – principally among those in the voluntary sector and wider civil society.

This was shown in the reaction to the Scottish Government’s recent, and timid, Programme for Government (pages 6 to 11).

From the sector, most ire has been drawn from the failure to bring forward a Human Rights Bill.

It’s a curious one this, and at first glance a bit surprising. Broad in its ambitions and importance, but initially fiscally neutral, you suspect previous iterations of the Scottish cabinet would have been happy to align themselves with its progressive intent.

But this is a very different world, economically and politically. Scottish ministers are no longer bound by the Bute House Agreement, they are embroiled in culture wars within their own party and movement, and a Human Rights Bill was perhaps seen as a ‘politically correct’ (I won’t use the ‘w’ word) frippery, unwelcome signalling for an administration lurching to the right.

Also, its origins are in civil society. And here’s the big one to take away: you have to conclude that they don’t really care what we say, think or do.

None of this bodes well as we move forward, towards a review of funding arrangements which will be published in November, and into a future where we will be expected to staunch the new austerity’s societal wounds, with barely even a pat on the head this time.

If there’s an upside, it’s the anger that is building in the sector. Let’s not shy away from it, let’s embrace it. Anger is an energy. Let’s make them prick up their ears and be made to listen.

Graham Martin is editor of TFN.