DECADE WE DECAYED..
WE’RE falling into the nasty habit of ensuring the second decade of a new century feels like root canal surgery without anaesthetic. Last time it was the Great War, this time a Great Depression, the rise of populist politics and paying lip service to a dying planet.
Unlike the noughties, the 2010s is yet to have a proper title. The Tortured Teens has a ring to it as that’s how most of us lived it. Riddled with angst, fear and insecurity which we gave vent to by throwing kill-me-now tantrums on social media.
It never stood much of a chance after the 2008 banking crash led to the most serious financial downturn since the 30s.
Massive state bailouts of banks led to unparalleled debt problems. Greece, Ireland and Portugal almost went bust.
Here bankers kept getting bonuses but the poor, sick and public sector workers felt the impact as austerity was inflicted by successive Tory governments in an ideological crusade to shrink the state.
There were five-hour queues at hospital A&Es as the NHS was starved of funds, foodbanks fed families and tent cities scarred and shamed the nation. Think-tank New Economics Foundation said over the decade the average household became £3,629-ayear worse off due to austerity.
Meanwhile the richest 1,000 people saw their combined wealth tripled.
Which makes it all the more astonishing that after 10 years of Tory rule they won an 80-seat majority at this month’s general election, especially as the party’s civil war spawned the word that was to define the decade: Brexit.
In January 2013 Prime Minister David Cameron said he was giving us a “simple choice” with an in/out referendum.
A naive description of the hate and division that would consume the country, tragically typified by the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a man who shouted “put Britain first”.
Leave won by 52%-48% but so many lies had been told and the electorate was so split that no one had a clue how to implement it. Still, at least it led to the quote of the decade from actor Danny Dyer: “So what’s happened to that tw*t David Cameron who called it on? How come he can scuttle off? He’s in Europe, in Nice, with his trotters up.”
Cameron swiftly left to write his memoirs in a designer shepherds’ hut. Theresa May became leader but calling a general election to consolidate her power backfired horribly and the Tories only survived by bunging the DUP a
BAD HAIR DAY
Trump and Kim meet in June
DIVIDED WE STAND Nigel Farage stands in front of his inflammatory 2016 referendum poster. Inset, TV star Danny Dyer blasts David Cameron. Below, far-right mass killer Anders Breivik, and murdered Labour MP Jo Cox billion quid to prop her up. May was a disastrous PM who seemed to get everything wrong.
Her reaction to the blaze at Grenfell Tower block of flats which killed 72 people was lamentable. In the days following the 2017 disaster, caused by a malfunctioning fridge-freezer which spread fire rapidly up the building due to unsafe cladding, May briefly visited the scene but met with no survivors. The reaction of locals was blistering, especially as they had spent years telling Tory governments and the local Tory council that the flats were unfit for purpose.
Ultimately, May was undermined by the right wing of her party who eventually drove her out and replaced her with Boris Johnson and his “Get Brexit Done” manifesto. The hard work
The Tortured Teens has a ring to it. It’s how most of us have lived our lives
HOW MANY OF US WILL REMEMBER THE PAST TROUBLED 10 YEARS
starts now. As it does for Labour, seeking a new leader after the rout of full-blooded socialist Jeremy Corbyn.
The Brexit vote, led by self-proclaimed man of the people Nigel Farage, was an example of the rise of populism across the world as working people were seduced by the message that metropolitan elites had left them behind.
Nowhere did that have more farreaching effects than in America, where a racist reality TV host, who had been taped bragging about grabbing women’s genitals, beat Democrat Hillary Clinton for the presidency.
It was a classic outsider victory over the Establishment, achieved by appealing to the country’s white, rustbelt heartlands with an offer to build a wall across the Mexican border and Make America Great Again. Or, as many suspected, after eight years being run by black president Barack Obama, who had tried to bring in free universal medical care, it was about Making America White Again.
The world’s most powerful country was run by an insecure narcissist who cared nothing for diplomacy or intelligence and who basically announced what he was doing on his morning toilet trip, via Twitter. It also spawned one of the most bizarre relationships ever seen on the world stage: Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. A pair of power-crazed little rich kids with the worst haircuts on the planet who referred to each other as “rocket man” and “dotard”.
In North Africa and the Middle East popular rebellions to depose dictators ended in chaos.
The deadly cult of Islamic State emerged out of the ashes of failed
aspirations, and terror spread across the world. From Manchester to London, France to Nigeria, suicide bombers and gunmen maimed and killed hundreds of innocents, while in Syria and Iraq, westerners were beheaded by the militants and ghoulish videos of their deaths released online.
Mass shootings in America went off the scale and in Norway right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik killed 77, mostly young, people.
But it wasn’t all grim on the world political front.
Young people regained their protesting voice, on a scale not seen since the 60s, to tell us they wouldn’t allow their futures to be burnt along with the planet.
Schoolkids, led by the forceful Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, staged one-day strikes to let us know that enough is enough.
Votes for green parties soared, meateating went into decline, British wind farms now provide 20% of our electricity, war was declared on plastic with the likes of David Attenborough showing us how man’s throwaway consumer culture was destroying the eco-system.
As the Arctic glaciers melted, climate change deniers – mostly ageing, white men like the US President – began to look increasingly stupid.
The rise of the female political voice also augurs well for the future.
This month’s general election returned a record number of women MPs and the pressure is now on Labour to elect the first female leader in their history.
In Finland, Sanna Marin, 34, has become the world’s youngest prime minister, leading a centre-left coalition.
In America women are fighting back. The day after Trump’s inauguration millions marched against their misogynistic leader in the largest singleday protest in US history.
The Me Too movement has seen women demand an end to sexism and gender pay inequality in the workplace.
As a new radical, diverse generation of Democrats in Congress face down the white, rich male power base in America, maybe as we enter a new decade, the future is not so bleak.