Crisis, tensions, worries, dirty politics, sadness and joys:

THE GOOD, BAD AND THE UGLY – 2022 THE YEAR THAT WAS; WHAT HOPES FOR THE UK IN 2023?

By SHAMLAL PURI

Asso­ciate Pub­lish­er & Senior Edi­tor – UK

shamlalpuri4@gmail.com

Worth Not­ing:

• The Unit­ed King­dom saw a shock­ing polit­i­cal tsuna­mi unique­ly, described as 5,4,3,2,1, mak­ing it a tale of shenani­gans, in just one year caus­ing a sig­nif­i­cant embar­rass­ment — an anti-cli­max shak­ing its image in domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy cir­cles.   
• The year saw five edu­ca­tion sec­re­taries, four chan­cel­lors, three prime min­is­ters, two Tory lead­er­ship coups one giant polit­i­cal sim­mer­ing caul­dron of con­spir­a­cies and back stab­bings with­in the Tory Par­ty, adding to the recipe of a mas­sive polit­i­cal fail­ure.
• The Con­ser­v­a­tive or the Tory Par­ty suf­fered a tru­ly apoc­a­lyp­tic 2022. This was the year of tur­moil with three Prime Min­is­ters as grim as Tory incom­pe­tence, sleaze, and scan­dal, which crashed the econ­o­my, cul­mi­nat­ing in a cost-of-liv­ing cri­sis.
• They won a resound­ing vic­to­ry in the 2019 gen­er­al elec­tion, throw­ing the oppo­si­tion Labour Par­ty to the oppo­si­tion bench­es in the House of Com­mons. The Tories were no doubt pop­u­lar, but they dent­ed their rep­u­ta­tion in the ensu­ing years.  

As the bit­ter winter’s weak sun sets over the Unit­ed King­dom today, 31 Decem­ber ush­er­ing in the New Year, Britons bid their farewells to 2022 with mixed feel­ings.

Most Britons are con­tent to con­fine the past 12 months to harsh mem­o­ries full of ten­sions in a bare­ly func­tion­ing coun­try – mem­o­ries that they would rather for­get.

Cri­sis, cri­sis and cri­sis, Britons liv­ing on the bread­line would describe 2022.

In a nut­shell, 2022 is a bad year for the have-nots who yearned for good news to ease their plight but got no joy.  

In sharp con­trast, 2022 could have brought trea­sured mem­o­ries for the UK’s mil­lion­aires and bil­lion­aires.

Cri­sis? What, cri­sis? The rich would ask. They suf­fered no pain, no cash crunch. For them, the year brought an over­load of hap­pi­ness and rich­es. Theirs is a bor­ing sto­ry wor­thy only of pass­ing men­tion and less deserv­ing of praise – at least the self­ish Britons or those few mil­lion­aires and bil­lion­aires who were con­fined in their ivory tow­ers while mil­lions suf­fered in pover­ty. 

The more pow­er­ful sto­ry is of how the poor coped in 2022.

Cost-of-liv­ing cri­sis, fuel short­ages, ram­pant crime, ener­gy cri­sis, unprece­dent­ed hunger and high ener­gy costs, indus­tri­al action and strikes that have paral­ysed the coun­try, hit them hard. Covid-19, which hasn’t per­ished but dis­ap­peared off the media’s radar and rel­e­gat­ed to an ordi­nary flu virus, still caus­es fears.

The death of Queen Eliz­a­beth II also cast a shad­ow over the coun­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly among the British pop­u­la­tion sup­port­ing the monar­chy. 

 The Unit­ed King­dom saw a shock­ing polit­i­cal tsuna­mi unique­ly, described as 5,4,3,2,1, mak­ing it a tale of shenani­gans, in just one year caus­ing a sig­nif­i­cant embar­rass­ment — an anti-cli­max shak­ing its image in domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy cir­cles.   

The year saw five edu­ca­tion sec­re­taries, four chan­cel­lors, three prime min­is­ters, two Tory lead­er­ship coups one giant polit­i­cal sim­mer­ing caul­dron of con­spir­a­cies and back stab­bings with­in the Tory Par­ty, adding to the recipe of a mas­sive polit­i­cal fail­ure.

 The Con­ser­v­a­tive or the Tory Par­ty suf­fered a tru­ly apoc­a­lyp­tic 2022. This was the year of tur­moil with three Prime Min­is­ters as grim as Tory incom­pe­tence, sleaze, and scan­dal, which crashed the econ­o­my, cul­mi­nat­ing in a cost-of-liv­ing cri­sis.

They won a resound­ing vic­to­ry in the 2019 gen­er­al elec­tion, throw­ing the oppo­si­tion Labour Par­ty to the oppo­si­tion bench­es in the House of Com­mons. The Tories were no doubt pop­u­lar, but they dent­ed their rep­u­ta­tion in the ensu­ing years.  

That elec­tion brought the career jour­nal­ist and for­mer may­or of Lon­don, Boris John­son, to 10 Down­ing Street as the Prime Min­is­ter. Things appeared to tick along well with Boris at the helm but call it his van­i­ty, his naivety. Boris’ pop­u­lar­i­ty star began to sink as he made a series of mis­takes that final­ly forced him out of Down­ing Street. 

John­son was doing a good job at the helm. He direct­ed his ener­gies towards tack­ling the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic and the two lock­downs and pre­pared the UK to bat­tle it with the killer virus. 

Thou­sands of miles away in the bow­els of Europe, Russia’s Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin had ter­ri­to­r­i­al ambi­tions and was des­per­ate to con­tin­ue his 2014 war against neigh­bour­ing Ukraine, a sov­er­eign coun­try once part of the USSR.

Rest­less, Putin attacked on 24 Feb­ru­ary 2022 to seize its ter­ri­to­ry and bring it under Russ­ian con­trol. John­son, who was hav­ing a bad time in Lon­don try­ing hard to sal­vage his rep­u­ta­tion, stepped into that war sid­ing with Ukraine. The UK has giv­en and/or pledged £2.3 bil­lion worth of aid and arms to Ukraine, much of it by the Boris Gov­ern­ment. 

But he made some car­di­nal mis­takes – like one rule for them and one rule for the lead­ers and the infa­mous Par­ty­gate sleaze involv­ing the Prime Min­is­ter.

He imposed rules ask­ing the rest of the coun­try to iso­late them­selves for their safe­ty, but he breached his rules and held par­ties at 10 Down­ing Street. The terms Par­ty­gate and sleaze were born here. 

At first, he denied all knowl­edge of these par­ties and said so at the House of Com­mons. But ulti­mate­ly, his lies were nailed when con­front­ed with evi­dence he was forced to accept that he was present at those par­ties. Alsop in atten­dance was his then Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer Rishi Sunak, his neigh­bour at 11 Down­ing Street – he too was fined. The fixed penal­ty amount they paid was pet­ty, but it dent­ed their rep­u­ta­tions, adding a ‘con­vic­tion’ to their names.

The Par­lia­men­tary rules, as they stood at the time, did not per­mit some­one with a ‘con­vic­tion’ to be the Prime Min­is­ter. 

The rebel­lion against Boris John­son snow­balled as his par­lia­men­tary col­leagues and Min­is­ters turned against him and resigned. Left alone by then, he was forced to resign on 7 July.

There were demands from the oppo­si­tion to hold Gen­er­al Elec­tions, which are due on 17 Decem­ber 2024. The Tories refused. 

They held an inter­nal ‘selec­tion’ process involv­ing the Tory par­ty mem­ber­ship vot­ing, which brought two con­tes­tants, for­mer For­eign Sec­re­tary Liz Truss and for­mer Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer mil­lion­aire Rishi Sunak in the John­son admin­is­tra­tion vying to be the next prime Min­is­ter.

There was no short­age of polit­i­cal back­stab­bing between the can­di­dates from the same par­ty try­ing their best to win. 

Truss won hands down and dis­ap­point­ed Rishi Sunak, who want­ed to make his­to­ry the UK’s first Asian dias­po­ra Prime Min­is­ter returned to the back­bench­es keep­ing a low pro­file.  

Truss entered Down­ing Street fir­ing on all cylin­ders, vow­ing to resus­ci­tate the ail­ing econ­o­my. She and her Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer, Kwasi Kwarteng, pre­sent­ed a minibud­get which back­fired so bad­ly that the econ­o­my crashed, leav­ing ugly scars, and scald­ing the Truss lead­er­ship.

The Pound sunk to its bot­tom ever in over three decades – going to as low as £1.03 to the US Dol­lar. The Bank of Eng­land had to inject £65 bil­lion to prop up the Pound and save the country’s econ­o­my from col­laps­ing.

She sacked her Chan­cel­lor Kwasi Kwarteng, choos­ing to blame him for the cat­a­stro­phe, but the final buck stopped with her.  

Kwarteng defend­ed him­self months lat­er, say­ing he had warned Liz Truss that she was going too fast with her eco­nom­ic plans. 

Weeks lat­er, her Home Sec­re­tary Suel­la Braver­man also resigned (or did Truss sack her?) after she alleged­ly breached the Min­is­te­r­i­al code of send­ing offi­cial emails to a senior Gov­ern­ment col­league from her pri­vate email rather than her more secure offi­cial email.   

Her gov­ern­ment felt the heat, and Truss was forced to resign after 44 days in pow­er and after her par­ty col­leagues turned against her.

That minibud­get had jinxed the Truss Gov­ern­ment.

The oppo­si­tion par­ties, espe­cial­ly Labour, demand­ed gen­er­al elec­tions call­ing the Tory par­ty incom­pe­tent and unwor­thy of rul­ing the coun­try,

It accused the Tories of treat­ing the UK as its per­son­al fief­dom. But the Tories would have none of it.

And, oh yes, the nona­ge­nar­i­an Queen Eliz­a­beth II, 96, the UK’s longest-serv­ing monarch, who Liz Truss had met two days ear­li­er to seek her per­mis­sion to form the new gov­ern­ment, also died, plung­ing the UK into a peri­od of mourn­ing.

The ail­ing Queen, who had recov­ered from a bout of Covid-19 in Feb­ru­ary, passed away at Bal­moral Cas­tle, Scot­land, on 8 Sep­tem­ber at 3.10 pm accord­ing to her death cer­tifi­cate, which cites the cause of her death as “old age”. 

At first, it was report­ed that the Queen had died of nat­ur­al caus­es, but accord­ing to media reports lat­er, her biog­ra­ph­er and close friend of roy­als Gyles Bran­dreth revealed that the monarch had some form of ‘bone mar­row can­cer’.

The Queen was laid to rest in the George VI Memo­r­i­al Chapel, on the grounds of Wind­sor Cas­tle, on 19 Sep­tem­ber,  

 after a colour­ful and spec­tac­u­lar State funer­al cer­e­mo­ny loaded with pageantry, pomp, tra­di­tions, and rit­u­als.

Soon after his mother’s death, her old­est son, Charles, was pro­claimed King Charles III. He did not wait long to change the face of the monarch on the British cur­ren­cy,

Coins fea­tur­ing King Charles III were released, and work is seri­ous­ly afoot to replace the Queen’s image on the UK cur­ren­cy notes.  

The polit­i­cal brawl con­tin­ued with Liz Truss’s forced res­ig­na­tion depar­ture, and the Tories des­per­ate­ly searched for a replace­ment to res­cue the rapid­ly sink­ing econ­o­my. 

The new Prime Min­is­ter had to be a Mr Mon­ey-trained can­di­date to turn around the econ­o­my.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty to take the key to 10 Down­ing Street knocked on Rishi Sunak’s door. 

What bet­ter chance was there for this career invest­ment banker who worked for Gold­man Sachs and lat­er as a part­ner at the hedge fund firms The Children’s Invest­ment Fund Man­age­ment and Theleme Part­ners?

Even though the dis­cred­it­ed Boris John­son cut short his hol­i­day in the Caribbean and flew back to Lon­don to present him­self as a viable replace­ment to Liz Truss and turn into a new leaf after his first bout in Down­ing Street, his cam­paign soon lost fizz as some Tories pushed hard to ensure Sunak won eas­i­ly – which he did at the end of Octo­ber. 

Per­sis­tence pays! At last! Rishi Sunak won his way to Down­ing Street as the UK’s third Prime Min­is­ter.

Let’s set aside the cir­cum­stances that pro­pelled him to the high office and cel­e­brate that the UK has won its Barack Oba­ma moment. 

Sunak not only entered the his­to­ry books as this country’s first British Asian dias­po­ra Prime Min­is­ter but was also seen as a can­di­date for the Guin­ness Book of Records for this feat. 

He has bro­ken all the records and achieved the once unachiev­able! We wish him hap­py days ahead.

Sunak promised that he would pick up the pieces from Liz Truss’s mis­takes, turn the wrongs into rights and rebuild the econ­o­my =- but only after a peri­od of tough mea­sures and tough times for Britons.

The coun­try was already suf­fer­ing from the ener­gy and cost-of-liv­ing crises, forc­ing many peo­ple to choose between eat­ing or heat­ing their homes in the harsh win­ter of 2022.

Some moth­ers have resort­ed to rum­mag­ing in the bins out­side char­i­ty shops and super­stores to see if they can find either food thrown away because it has passed its sale-by date or dis­card­ed donat­ed by the rich, which char­i­ty shops could not sell to raise mon­ey for good caus­es. 

The Unit­ed King­dom is now the land of hun­gry peo­ple — the land of haves and have-nots. 

The worse affect­ed are chil­dren. Over half a mil­lion chil­dren do not have food at home, and some resort to steal­ing food from the school can­teen. 

The UK is going through an unprece­dent­ed emer­gency: Hunger. 

It is dev­as­tat­ing many lives, and there is a dan­ger that fam­i­lies may be forced to aban­don their young chil­dren if they can­not feed them. 

A sin­gle moth­er said she feeds her chil­dren first and eats their left­overs from the food brought from what she can afford to buy. Anoth­er sur­vives on soup and bread. Yet, anoth­er — a senior cit­i­zen — had not eat­en for three days because she had noth­ing at home. 

There are mil­lions of heart-wrench­ing sto­ries of chil­dren and sin­gle moth­ers just like, but who nev­er get told or acknowl­edged that they haven’t had a decent meal all day. They are forced to steal food to get by.

The UK needs more food. Plen­ty of food is avail­able, but mil­lions don’t have the mon­ey to buy food. Instead, they depend on free food from char­i­ties and some 1,500 food banks. 

In the UK, it was not all doom and gloom in 2022. There was pos­i­tive news too.

Employ­ers agreed to allow their staff a four-day work­ing week in the UK. This would apply to a small sec­tion of some 3,300 work­ers at 70 UK com­pa­nies rang­ing from local busi­ness­es to large cor­po­ra­tions. Those who are seen as key work­ers with respon­si­bil­i­ties such as hos­pi­tals, fire brigade, and police, among oth­ers, have a long way to go before win­ning these perks,

The world’s largest float­ing wind farm was approved to be built off the coast of the UK. Once com­plet­ed, the float­ing wind farm will gen­er­ate around  1GW of pow­er. That’s enough for approx­i­mate­ly 927,000 homes in the UK.

What can we expect in 2023? Prob­a­bly, more of the same.

The first few months are bound to be filled with many prob­lems car­ried for­ward from the past year. With the next gen­er­al elec­tion star­ing at the Tories in 2024, this is their oppor­tu­ni­ty to win back the hearts of the Britons and pow­er.