Hurray! It looks like 2020 is over! Thank fuck for that. The only person who's probably seen the global pandemic as a good thing is Prince Andrew. It means he's had an excuse not to visit America and answer those 'awkward' questions about his dead rich chum with a thing for young girls.
There are quite a lot of Tories and friends of Tory MPs who have also enjoyed a bumper year thanks to Covid-19. They've mysteriously managed to secure million-pound contracts thanks to a scrutiny-free procurement processes that would shame most corrupt dictatorships. Well done all. The UK is indeed a land of opportunity. Particularly if your privilege, wealth or inherited position gives you access to the right friendship groups and circles within circles.
For the rest of us, however, it's been a pretty grim 10 months. It's been even worse than grim if you've lost loved ones or your job hasn't been protected. I offer you my sympathy if that is you.
Here are some personal reflections on a year that pretty much everyone wants to forget...
The worst Government at the worst time
The list of Government failures and lies and doubling down on lies is spectacular in its scale. Clearly out of their depth, the Johnson Government refused to demonstrate any form of cogent leadership from the beginning of this pandemic. The fact they then failed to learn from their mistakes and continued to act too late and ignore the science helps explain why the UK is in the mess it's in.
Even today, despite SAGE telling them they should not be sending kids back to primary schools, they are sowing confusion by questioning the science when the SAGE message is crystal clear.
Their incompetence when it comes to basic project management and clear messaging throughout this pandemic is criminally negligent. If I performed that badly in any job, I'd expect to be sacked.
Goodbye Europe
The UK leaving Europe was a strangely emotional day for me. It made me furious and incredibly sad. Overnight, Great Britain became Lesser Britain with a weaker trading position, while Europe announced a huge trade deal with China.
The UK essentially ended up here because a bunch of right-wing sociopaths convinced large swathes of the population that they didn't have jobs because of the immigrant influx into this country – rather than the fact that the aforementioned right-wing sociopaths had trashed the economy with casino-style banking and toxic fiscal policies such as austerity.
All Remainers failed every young person in the UK by not winning this fight. We've lost so much and even if the Government's most generous fiscal forecasts are true, the economy is going to lose a lot more. And that's before we look at lost opportunities for young people, the loss of co-operation on international security, education, investment, collaborative projects and services. The latter is particularly important as services provide a huge chunk of the UK economy. And guess what wasn't protected during negotiations? I feel sick.
Writing equals sanity
Writing has always been my way of making sense of the world, so a month off work on furlough saw me get productive and write the first draft of a new play. I'm quite pleased with it, even if the end needs a lot of work. It's called Plague and it's about an ambitious local councillor from a town in East Yorkshire who wants to stage a community play. But the story the playwright unearths threatens to expose the town's dark past.
It has two timelines: one set in 1986, when the play is going to be staged; and the other set in 1665, the plague year when the play is set. It also presents the idea of contagion and canker as a physical disease and as moral and political corruption. Wonder where I got that idea?
Training news
I started the year off by competing at a BJJ tournament and getting my arse well and truly kicked. The rest of the year has seen me train lots in isolation, with online classes thrown into the mix, too.
I never thought martial arts would become another path to sanity. But it absolutely has and I've never appreciated the discipline it instills or the sense of togetherness it brings more than in 2020. If you don't train in a martial art and you need something to help you out during lockdown, I'd absolutely recommend starting. It's never too late.
People power
I've always been blessed with the best of friends. Working in journalism, playing pool, training martial arts and writing have given me several families at different points in my life when I'm geographically removed from my own clan in Yorkshire.
Their support has been hugely important this year. I like to think I'm reasonably self-contained, but even I've felt dark days in the past 10 months. Obviously, I don't mean really dark days. I'd never seek to suggest I have the type of serious mental health problems that affect others. But if I've felt it, then I can only sympathise with how it has affected others who face these types of issues.
It's an oft-quoted line, but friends are the family you choose. And I've been lucky enough to have people in my life who have let me choose them as my family. My love to you all.
Learning power
My wife, my stepson and his girlfriend remain a constant source of inspiration for me. My uber-talented potter wife has been throwing some very cool stuff and she's starting to get it out there and sell it. My stepson and his girlfriend are comic creators who continue to find and refine ways to create and publish and sell their work. I was once like them. I had that fire. I need to rediscover that drive in 2021. I can learn from them in that respect.
I also landed a new job and it's made me rediscover the joys of learning as I've had to get myself up to speed with lots of science and engineering disciplines. This has reawakened my desire to learn again. It's also made me appreciate what science is and how it operates.
Anyway, at 51 I'm learning new things and I need to relearn old things. This is exciting.
Hope
Things may seem bleak at the moment. We have the worst Government at the worst time and we seem to be in the grip of a bunch of vicious Little Englanders who have enabled vile prejudices and views to gain currency. Racism has been emboldened. But we've been here before. I remember the 1980s when everyone was either with the government and its series of vicious policies or they were portrayed as 'the enemy within'.
We see a similar narrative play out now. Teachers or NHS staff who question the Government's pandemic response aren't getting behind the national effort enough. Anyone who asks questions that challenge Government dogma and lies about Brexit are somehow unpatriotic and not getting behind Britain and should silence their inquiries.
Not that their are many inquiries in the mainstream media. Apart from a few notable exceptions – The Guardian, Piers Morgan, The Mirror, Novara Media, Channel 4 News – we now seem to have a compliant media that doesn't even challenge basic lies.
I have hope, though. Some of that hope lies with the next generation who have become politicised through groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter. They understand that it takes more than hitting a 'Like' button on Facebook to make meaningful change. In the absence of meaningful debate, I hope activism is back to stay.
