2023: The year nothing got better
A year ago, when I wrote my summary of politics in 2022, I was feeling very depressed about the state of the world. A year later I’m not much more optimistic, if anything I feel worse.
Global temperatures have continued to rise, the weather has become more extreme and warnings from climate scientists have become increasingly panicked. They’re now publishing academic papers that are the equivalent of jumping on a desk, firing off an air horn and shouting “do something you fucking morons before we all die.” Still the wise and mighty leaders of the world twiddle their thumbs and focus their efforts on wringing more economic activity out of ever depleting resources for billionaires.
Where is the opposition?
Once again, I find myself asking: where is the opposition to this? What democratic button do I press for things to be different? I’m not asking for a revolution, red flags to be flying over Westminster, the British military and police to be abolished and for Nigella Lawson to be declared Eternal President of the UK. Although, all of that would be great.
I want a government that will take serious action on climate change, invest in infrastructure, make sure that children don’t starve, work to make sure food banks aren’t needed anymore, help people with the cost of living crisis and help people who are forced to sleep on the street. Apparently, this is extremist nonsense that should be suppressed.
Hot takes and woke royals
The year began with a media pile on after Prince Harry published his book Spare. I dislike the Royal Family in general and Prince Harry’s push for woke royalty is as much an oxymoron as fighting for peace (I say this as someone who identifies as woke), but if we’re going to have a royal family they shouldn’t be racist to the one person of colour in it. After all, they’re the royal family of everyone in Britain, including the people of colour.
This was the first event of 2023 that triggered an endless barrage of angry hot takes as everyone got in their two cents on Twitter and in the press. This wasn’t the last or the worst case of this in 2023, sadly. It was another year where we nearly drowned in pointless bile because it makes money for tech companies.
Tory schadenfreude
Things continued to go badly for the Tories, which was at least pleasing to watch. Kinda like the powerful sense of catharsis in watching your annoying neighbour’s house burn down. The only problem is that we all live in the Tories’ house.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak continues to do this whole ‘I’m a sensible, moderate, safe pair of hands, centrist politician’, whilst making populist outbursts that make even the most beetroot-faced Red Wall Tory/Labour swing voters cringe. His biggest “I’m a tough, nasty, politician who picks on the less fortunate” policy is sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, which so far he’s been unable to do due to little inconvenient things like human rights. I’m sure he’ll be ripping those up soon.
Sunak is unable to hang onto cabinet ministers or get his MPs to vote the way he wants. His Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, quit as she wants more time to devote to far-right politics. His MPs are up in arms about everything because his government’s massive unpopularity is likely to mean many of them lose their jobs and will have to beg their rich mates in the private sector for well paid lobbying positions so that their children can stay in expensive private schools.
All this ineptitude and looming electoral disaster would be fun, apart from the fact that I wouldn’t put it past the Tory party to start a war with France to hold onto power. The outcome of the next election could be a surprise. Especially after months of the Tories accusing Labour of being woke. That will be fun to watch.
Worse things waiting in the wings
I’m pleased that the Tories are likely to get the electoral kicking they so rightly deserve, apart from the fact that they will then mutate into something worse. As well as Braverman waiting in the wings to take over, Liz Truss is doing the rounds, blaming the shit show of her 45 days as PM on the woke metropolitan liberals; confirming that there is literally nothing that cannot be blamed on woke metropolitan liberals as a means of distracting attention from how awful the dominance of right-wing politics over our political class has been for everyone.
Watching Braverman and Truss rip the Tory Party apart as they try to yank it in different directions of awfulness would be satisfying to watch, if I wasn’t so scared that whichever bat-shit faction takes over was likely to win a future election. If you’re saying that having a right-wing idiot take over will be electoral suicide for the Tories, just look at the Republican Party.
Only nominally better
There’s also the problem that the other side is only nominally better. Labour leader Keir Starmer has distanced himself from plans to help starving children, invest in infrastructure, raise taxes on the wealthy and clean up the air. Labour are also down playing their plan to avoid a looming environmental apocalypse, because an angry man called Neil from Coventry hates Just Stop Oil and wants to drive his private tank to Sainsbury’s twice a week to buy vast quantities of meat with thousands of food miles on it and will literally vote for a fascist if anyone points out this is all a bad idea.
Labour’s plan is to pander to this as much as possible, whilst giving the Boomers the right to put non-binary London-based Millennials in the stocks if they like. Probably. It honestly sounds like something they would consider if the Daily Mail wanted it.
I have little hope that a Labour government can be much better than what we have right now. Especially one with no clearly stated plan to make the country a better place. A few more details of how Labour will end the nightmare we are unable to wake from, please Mr Starmer. More than just “more growth” as that wealth is likely to be gobbled up by greedy rich people; I’m sorry “honest wealth creators”.
Gary Lineker using his free speech
The problem with this country is that most of the people who will decide the outcome of the next election are cunts, which makes it hard for politicians to offer anything good. This is mainly because our unfair electoral system gives disproportionate power to grumpy socially conservative Boomers and angry middle-aged people with mortgages. You know, the sort of people driven to apoplectic rage by the thought that somewhere someone is eating a tuna-mayo sandwich they didn’t earn.
About half the country wanted Gary Lineker kicked off the TV for exercising his right to free speech on Twitter (I’m not calling it X) and criticising the government. If loads of people think that saying that we shouldn’t treat migrants horribly is a sackable offence, then what hope is there for this country? Again, it would be nice if Labour didn’t pander to this and offered some opposition.
Donald Trump might be heading back to the White House
At the same time Americans are about to have another of their increasingly frequent bouts of “let’s elect someone who might destroy the world.” The only thing that can stop Donald Trump from winning next year’s election is his own coronary arteries finally giving up.
I feel bad for President Joe Biden. He has achieved economic growth in difficult circumstances and has tried to tackle some of America's problems; from investing in new high-tech industries, to trying to tackle the climate and student debt. Although, most people aren’t feeling the benefit, certainly not the 100,000 or so people in swing states who will decide who the next President is, which is insane when you write that down.
Even being on trial for trying to overthrow the government and the chance that Trump will campaign for the next election from a prison cell is not denting his popularity. Certainly not with his base (all hope of them seeing sense died long ago). But worryingly, even sensible moderate conservatives are likely to vote for this guy, because they think all liberals are paedophiles or some shit.
Decomposing in public
Biden continues to decompose in public. I had the privilege of visiting the USA this year and talking to many lovely people there (that’s not sarcasm, Americans are lovely people let down by a horrible political class). My main takeaway was that even the Democrats I talked to said Biden is too old to stand again. He looks and behaves like a doddery old person and he’s likely to be an electoral liability.
The fact that the Democrats are too terrified to put anyone else forward for fear of Fox News destroying their chances with swing voters is both depressing and horrifying. Biden’s legacy should be that he was the person who brought everyone together to beat Trump. If he carries on like this, his legacy will be that he didn’t step aside and let Trump back in to be even worse.
Bloody conflicts around the world
There has also been an explosion of awful news from around the world this year. The War in Ukraine continues its bloody stalemate. Russian President Vladimir Putin shows no sign of seeing sense and stopping the carnage. The West remains unable to beat him or to help Ukraine out of this horrible situation, without dangerously escalating a conflict with a nuclear armed mad man. I’m sure before long the sensible moderates will be agitating for selling out Ukraine, because they can’t think of anything else to do.
The liberal world order has also been unable to stop Israel from killing, so far, over 20,000 Palestinians and laying waste to Gaza. If you look up indiscriminate slaughter in the dictionary the definition has now been replaced by the logo of the IDF. No amount of gentle cajoling from Israel’s allies has stopped them from deliberately killing children and journalists.
The liberal world order doesn’t really have tools it can use to stop states being incredibly violent. All they can offer is “sorry Palestine, we tried asking nicely but it didn’t work and we can’t think of anything else.” Yes, Hamas are a bunch of shits and they deliberately target civilians and kill children. They’re awful, but what has followed their attack on the 7th of October is a disproportionate collective punishment of all Palestinians, who have as much influence over their Hamas government as I do in stopping the Tories being corrupt hate mongers.
Tech companies and social problems
The War in Gaza also unleashed the worst hot take war of the year, with thousands of people dedicating themselves full time to online performative rudeness. As if this will help the civilians on either side who have died or will be killed. Then again, if you can fill Twitter with hatred directed at public figures for not saying exactly what you want, then you can feel like you have achieved something.
Speaking of tech, we managed to collectively lose our shit over AI this year. Looks like the tech companies aren’t done cooking up social problems. After turning us all into angry Fox News presenters with Twitter, then giving us platforms to find new ways to scam each other whilst wrecking the environment with crypto, tech is now all about taking away all the good jobs with AI.
Looks like AI will be writing all our songs and books in the future, leaving people free to spend more time pissing in bottles as we all try to make some money being Uber drivers. The prize for biggest lack of self-awareness of the year goes to our own PM, Sunak, for arguing, in front of five times billionaire-dumb-ass-of-the-year Elon Musk, that people should take more risks and start tech companies, whilst being part of a government that has slashed the social safety net.
I guess people who rely on food banks should start tech companies. That seems like a sensible suggestion. Of course, what we need is better regulation of AI and some economic redistribution to make sure there is wealth for people who aren’t tech billionaires in the future. Or maybe someone can invent that computer that destroys the world because it can’t stop making paper clips. The future will be one or the other.
Democracy year
Next year will be democracy year, with the US, UK, India and many other countries having elections. Something like two billion people will be eligible to vote, the most ever in human history. This would be a beautiful sign of how far humanity has come, if all this voting wasn’t likely to elect a series of authoritarian shits from Narendra Modi to Donald Trump. Still, in the UK, we might get a bland technocrat to protect the status quo and manage the nation’s decline, whilst food gets harder to come by.
It’s Christmas time, so I should think of something optimistic to say. The only thing that gives me hope is the kindness of ordinary people, like church groups and schools raising funds for food banks or for Palestinians or Ukrainians, or people doing small things to help their communities through these dark times.
I remain hopeful that the fundamental decentness of ordinary people (most Brits are actually nice, it’s just the swing voters who are likely to decide who the next government is who are cunts) will find some political outlet to make the world a better place. At times like these, I’m comforted by the words of David Graeber who said: “The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.” Let’s see if we can do that in 2024.
