With the turn of the year, Scotland’s political parties are all looking ahead to the Holyrood election. The SNP is keen to retain its majority, and given their position in the polls everyone else will be making the case for a strong opposition to hold the SNP ministers to account.

Those ministers began the Parliamentary year with a wide-ranging debate covering public services, inequality and economic growth. On the surface those all sound like priorities that few would disagree with. But scratch the surface and there are real political differences to get to grips with.

Every one of us, every day, depends on public services. We are all part of a society and our quality of life depends on one another. A healthy, educated, well housed population isn’t just desirable; these are vital necessities alongside infrastructure, rule of law, and protecting the environment. But the future of those services is at stake, with some people seeing no problem privatising them or creating pseudo-market systems which inevitably cut corners and distort priorities. If the Scottish Parliament is going to be bold in supporting public services, it must resist that agenda even when UK Government cuts increase the pressure.

Tackling inequality also sounds uncontroversial, but there are real differences of opinion at Holyrood about how much we can do. Even after the devolution of modest tax and welfare powers, we’ll be working in a context that’s decided partly by the UK, and partly by the “markets” to which far too much power has been handed over the years; power which should be democratically accountable. Take one example – the so-called “national living wage”. It’s not a true Living Wage, just an upper band on the minimum wage which only people over 25 will get. They’ll get a pay increase, though they’ll lose far more in other cuts, for example to tax credits. Even worse, if big employers simply shift more people onto zero-hour contracts, they’ll be able to give fewer hours to older workers, and keep their wage bills low. Exploitation will change, but won’t be ended.

Then there’s the third priority in that government motion – economic growth. No government has ever come to terms with the fundamental limits to growth, or found a way to ensure that the wealth generated by growth goes to those who need it the most. Most often, growth keeps the economy working well for a tiny minority, at the expense of exploiting the majority, and degrading the environment we all depend on.

We should all be ambitious for public services, for a more equal society, and for a healthy, balanced and sustainable economy. But that must involve challenging assumptions about what those easy slogans mean in practice.