2015 – REFUGEE CRISIS

The news that Alex Salmond was facing allegations of inappropriate behaviour while in office hit like a hurricane.

The former FM, a titanic figure in Scottish politics, had been on the brink of realising independence just four years before.

He held a hastily convened press conference at the Champany Inn in Linlithgow, West Lothian, announcing he would take a civil case against the Scottish Government over its handling of an internal investigation.

It was a case he won, with the Government ordered to pay him more than £500,000 in costs.

A separate criminal trial is due to take place early in the coming year.

A perfect storm of revolution, warfare, climate and religious extremism led to the displacement of millions fleeing Syria to Turkey, Greece and Italy. It reached crisis point in September 2015 with the image of three-yearold Alan Kurdi’s body washed up on a Turkish beach. The image is not appropriateppp here but it didd change the conversation co on a crisis which hadha become a politicalpo football. ThousandsT of refugeesref were given homeshom in Europe, includinginc Syrians who settled in Bute.

How do you sum up a year unlike any seen before? It has to be from the three-ring circus which the House of Commons resembled.

Theresa May’s tears? John Bercow’s swansong? Boris Johnson with the keys to No10? Maybe the one which summed it up best of all was cartoon toff Jacob Rees-Mogg playing the Westminster lounge lizard as the country groaned under the strain of Brexit episode 3087.

Rees-Mogg claimed he was trying to hear a speaker. To the rest of the world, it portrayed a very distinct type of Tory entitlement.