I can’t remember a time when I finished a year feeling less optimistic about the future. During the last two Covid-19 ravaged years, I clung to hope that once we were out the other side of the pandemic things would be better. Oh, how foolishly naive I was. 

A year ago, the omicron variant made it looked like Covid-19 was planning a late pandemic comeback. One of the strange things about 2022 was how little the pandemic was in the news (or Brexit for that matter). The virus is still out there, killing people, but we have collectively decided to stop caring. Even the Queen managed to die of something normal, and dodged Covid-19. 

It was a year without Covid-19, but not a return to normality. The world has been rocked by economic shocks and military conflicts. We’re angrier, poorer and more ground down than ever. Each new headline only makes things worse. I just opened BBC news and read a story about child murder. 

The stupidest political misfire in history

Well, I may be tired and depressed, but one person who is having a merry Christmas is Keir Starmer. Labour is currently ahead in the polls, leading on the all-important economic competence metric, and looks likely to win big in the next election. Labour hasn’t done much to earn this lead. They sat back whilst the Tories repeatedly shat the bed and then smeared excrement everywhere whilst they were trying to clean it up. 

This year we’ve had three Prime Ministers. Boris Johnson finally faced consequences for something he had done and was booted out by his own panicked party, we then got to enjoy the spectacle of Liz Truss being PM for 45 minutes. In that time, she got to meet the Queen (who promptly died) and then detonated the economy by freaking out bankers with a bungled plan for rich people to pay less tax. Her budget may be the biggest political misfire in history, if not the stupidest. 

Now Rishi Sunak is Prime Minister and doing a Tory greatest hits show, featuring right-wing crowd pleasers such as sending migrants as far away as possible and austerity for everyone who doesn’t have a townhouse in Kensington.

The valid concerns of middle-aged mortgage men

After the populism of Johnson and the right-wing libertarianism of Truss, Sunak is styling himself as a sensible moderate. He and Starmer are busy wrestling over the same narrow band of centrist, wealthy, older voters who will decide the next election. Labour call this ideal voter, the only voter whose opinions matter and whose concerns are valid, middle-aged mortgage man. Be prepared for a lot of focus on what the Daily Mail is saying in the run-up to the next election. 

All this leaves me quite depressed. I’m pleased that Labour is ahead in the polls and there is a chance we might finally end the crippling nightmare of Tory rule, but I daren’t get my hopes up. Partly because of Labour’s ability to not only miss an open goal, but to somehow burn down the whole football stadium instead, but also partly because I’m not sure Starmer will be much better than Sunak.

Hopefully, he will reduce the staggering rates of homelessness, food poverty, fuel poverty and LabBaby Christmas numbers 1s. The most desperately needy need a government that will help them, instead of handing out lucrative public sector contracts to their rich mates. However, will Starmer do much for the millions of people who are not at the sharpest end of the sword, but are struggling after decades of below inflation pay rises? People such as young people in cities who don’t have mortgages? Probably not.

What about the people who want something different

Who will speak to the people who want things to be different? The people who want politics to not be entirely focused on what homeowning swing voters in Essex are angry about this week. The people who are sick of only hearing from people with a manic hatred of everything not British, and a vindictive desire to publish the poor, need a champion. 

Who in politics will speak for striking nurses and train drivers? Who will speak for the people whose work our society relies on and are being pushed into poverty by the rising cost of living, but aren’t middle-aged swing voters with a mortgage? The people who - whisper it - thought Jeremy Corbyn had some good ideas. Not Starmer's Labour party.

What does Labour stand for? I don’t know and I spend A LOT of time reading about politics. Labour conference this year was opened by the singing of the national anthem, producing pictures that made the party look like the villains in an unsubtle action film making a broad point about nationalism. Is this what middle-aged mortgage man wants? Frankly, it looks silly.  

We need an alternative to the alternative

Labour is for whatever the people who masturbate over the flag are for. They’re on the side of the people who post disgusting breakfasts on Twitter and claim it costs 33p to make before blaming the hungry for being hungry. This is the only alternative we have to the corrupt and heartless Tories? What is the alternative to the alternative?

Everyone from Workington to Walthamstow and Lerwick to Truro is having their livelihood assaulted by the rising cost of living, their retirement savings wiped out by inflation, their daily life ground down by low wages, whilst suffering from bad housing and worrying about the creeping march of the angry people who have very clear ideas about who isn’t British and what should be done about them.

This year we had a 40-degree day in London and arctic cold in December. Most of us want all this to stop, but what is the electoral button we press to make it happen? Vote Green? I don’t know. Have you seen Brighton Council lately?

The retro comeback we didn’t want

70s retro is back in. The energetic London punk scene is a good thing, but inflation, far-right marches and economic uncertainty aren’t good. Nurses, train drivers, tube drivers, postal workers and many more are downing tools as it’s the only way to stop all the terrible things I listed above from ruining their lives.

Of course, Labour won’t back working people organising for a fairer (read not punishing) deal. At least we now have Mike Lynch, a man who goes on TV and calmly points out the problems with this country. It’s good to see someone say: “We are all been ground down and people are right to stand up and ask for something better.” I wish Labour would do that, but I guess they’re too worried about what a 50-year-old cabbie from Hartlepool with a mortgage called Graham thinks about nurses. Everyone else likes nurses and is grateful for what they did during the pandemic, but Graham thinks strikes are the sort of thing people in London do and thus Labour won’t support them. 

Inflation and the cost of living might be bad, but they’re nothing compared to the looming climate disaster. Another year has ticked by, and we have once again failed to make the essential changes to our society and economy that are needed to stop the sea swallowing small island nations or deserts expanding, driving everyone into over-packed, poorly administered and conflict-riven cities. I’m sure only good things can come from that. 

Biden and Trump 

In the US there is at least a nominally left-wing government. Does this offer a vision for the future? Well, Joe Biden has been able to pass some legislation tackling issues from the climate to student debt. None of it goes as far as I, or many left-wing activists, would like, but it’s at least a step forwards. 

America is already gearing up for the 2024 Presidential election, with Florida governor Ron DeSantis being the latest terrifyingly right-wing person who wants to have a pop at being President. Can’t say I’m thrilled about the prospect of ten or so white male boomers spending two years arguing about who can be the worst to migrants, whilst accusing each other of being woke. At least Donald Trump is facing criminal charges for trying to overthrow the government. Well, if it isn’t the consequences of his own actions. 

Shits around the world

Speaking of angry pasty boomers who should never be allowed in charge of nuclear weapons but for some strange reason have loads of them, Vladimir Putin has won the much-contested biggest shit of the year award for invading Ukraine and unleashing the unending horror of war on the Ukrainian people, and the unending horror of war-based hot takes on everyone who does politics online.

As humans continue to flush the environment and our own civilization down the toilet, we’ll see more of the strongmen of the world throwing their weight around to enlarge their already gargantuan egos. This is likely to be a long and bloody conflict, setting the tone for many long and bloody conflicts to follow, unless we can find a democratic counterargument to the popularity of authoritarian strongmen. 

Emmanuel Macron won re-election in France, showing that the centre can prevail against the far-right. Borrowing heavily from the Starmer playbook of “offer little that is encouraging but point at how awful your opponent is,” Macron has earned himself another few years to not tackle the problems of France or the world. 

Rage against the woke

As the climate worsens there will be more waves of migration and more disruption that only fuel the fire of people like Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, who seek to exploit fear and xenophobia to gain power. The left needs to be ready to argue for migration and for helping the less fortunate, not bow to popular prejudices that will only help those who seek to demonise people from other places who are in need.  

Whilst we’re starting arguments, let’s not forget the word of the year, “woke”. The beetroot-faced people of the world spent 2022 being angry at everything from pride flags to Dr Who casting, which they claim are attacks on Western civilisation. Being woke is apparently a dangerous ideology that's a threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, like Stalinism.

The march of dangerous woke young people who don’t want to be boiled alive by the climate can only be stopped by the vigilant efforts of boomers with large public profiles and lots of money leading a charge to slay the dragon of wokeness. I’m sure that Piers Morgan, Jordan Peterson and John Cleese want to do everything they can to make the world a better place. 

Tedious culture warriors 

Runners up in the hotly contested tedious right-wing bore of the year award included Darren Grimes, everyone who writes for the Spectator, everyone who has been on GB News and everyone pontificating about the woke or “snowflakes”. Bonus points if you do it whilst lifting weights, so that you look like a hybrid of a person and a sack of potatoes.

At least we can all enjoy Elon Musk ruining Twitter and himself. I can’t think of a better pairing than the world’s former richest man and dull culture warrior, and the hell-site plugged into the darkest part of our collective consciousness. They deserve each other and I hope that they make each other miserable. 

Musk is so thin skinned that he has to be on the side of the right-wing trolls as he can’t stand to be mocked by them. Now he owns the world’s most expensive midlife crisis Ferrari and is making his ineptness at business clear for all to see. Musk is final proof that capitalism isn’t meritocratic, but instead rewards rich pole climbers who are full of hot air.

We can but hope

Musk schadenfreude aside, it has been a pretty grim year. We’re all feeling the pinch of multiple economic and social crises, and I can only imagine how much worse it is for people not as privileged as me.

What is the alternative to this misery and how do we get it? Well, it’s not coming from the Labour Party, the Democrats, En Marche, or any of the global centre left establishment parties. They’re offering reheated old orthodoxies, like an attempt to make last night’s disappointing takeaway seem like something fresh and exciting by bunging it in the microwave for two minutes.

The world has changed a lot in 2022, mainly for the worse and I’m not optimistic about the future. The only option is to hope that all this misery will eventually breed the critical action needed to build something better. We can but hope. The only alternative is to descend into despair, which won’t help anyone. 

Photo of Liz Truss from Wikipedia and used under the United Kingdom Open Government Licence v3.0.