I USED to wear platform shoes that made me about 6ft 8in tall.

The height of nonsense, my mother called them back in the 1970s.

It was all flared trousers and tank tops and long hair and even longer sideburns.

That was the fashion into the 1980s, the decade of excess, before the Bay City Rollers and the winter of discontent gave way to power dressing and outrageous punks with their Doc Martens.

Happy memories — not least for the abundance of hot pants — and I met and married Nancy Sheppard in the 1970s (and she still can't get rid of me).

That other old married couple, the bickering Labour and Tory parties, are determined to turn back the clock to those days.

Ed Miliband is leading his troops sharp Left in a return to 1970s-style price fixing.

David Cameron is resurrecting the 1980s tactics of Margaret Thatcher by labelling his rival Red Ed, a left-wing threat to economic stability.

You can see the method in their madness.

Thatcher's nasty party mantra of profit, wealth creation and tax cuts inflicted four successive general election defeats on Labour.

Cameron is plotting a similar course, pledging to cut corporation tax for big business, raise the tax allowance, give married couples a £1000 tax break, and freeze fuel duty until the 2015 election.

And he'll fund those cuts with a crude purge on benefits that hasn't stopped at the bedroom tax.

Last week he announced that all under-25s would lose their automatic right to housing benefit and Jobseeker's Allowance if they refuse to take up offers of work, training or education. "Earn or learn," he warns.

Miliband is trying to recapture the middle ground, promising 1970s-style energy price capping, taxes on banks, free childcare, and reversing that Tory corporation tax cut.

And he has a cliche of his own, "Use it or lose it", a warning to banks, supermarkets and housebuilders who are sitting on land until they can get a better return on their money.

Red Ed and Dogma Dave, trying to bribe us with our own money and making promises they know they can't keep in a battle for the souls of the have-nots and the have-yachts.

No acknowledgment at last month's Labour conference that it was their lot who got us into this mess in the first place.

No acknowledgment at last week's Tory conference of the damage Thatcherite policies continue to inflict on Scotland.

You have to say: "Scotland can do better than both of them!"

Cameron is running scared.

He dangled a conference carrot for Tory voters expected to desert in their droves to UKIP in next May's European elections, and the under-25s were merely part of the collateral damage.

But those carrots will have to get considerably bigger and juicier after UKIP leader Nigel Farage's weekend announcement that he will then stand as an MP at the 2015 General Election.

The media savvy ex-Tory has become his old party's bogeyman, telling the embattled, embittered English middle-classes exactly what they wish to hear on Europe and immigration and appearing as the only leader prepared to fight their corner.

Miliband is embracing a similar populist stance and there is no doubt he struck a conference chord with many non-Labour voters.

The savage Tory media smears against him, through his father Ralph, are no surprise.

The aim is to stop Labour getting into government, by fair means or foul.

Sound familiar? It should. The unionist-dominated media uses the same scaremongering to taint the case for Scottish independence.

Meantime, it's the turn of our under-25s to be demonised by the Tories.

Just think, from 17 they can fight Britain's illegal wars, risking life and limb.

If they are unfortunate enough to be made redundant by defence cuts while still under 25, they will not be able to claim benefit.

And if they are unlucky enough to become casualties of war, their parents will be liable for bedroom tax.

Now that really is the height of nonsense.

DAVID CAMERON likes to say we're all in this together. It's just that some of us are in it deeper than others.

As the bedroom tax bites across the country, as the Scottish Government defies a Westminster freeze on a planned 1% pay rise for NHS workers, we hear of more expenses embarrassment involving a senior Tory.

Dr Liam Fox may be a property millionaire, but he's also now regarded in England as a true Scot.

The former defence secretary, long-time MP for Somerset, claimed THREE PENCE of taxpayers' money for a 100-metre car journey from a local concrete factory to his constituency office.

He made 15 other claims of under £1 for car travel in 2012-13 and said: "My expenses are all done according to the rules."

Nice to see the good doctor hasn't lost touch with real life since leaving East Kilbride.