New decade sees the dawning of real hope
FROM profoundly unpromising beginnings, 2019 became the year we got our democracy back. This time last year, the road ahead was beset by demons.
Government was stuck fast in a Brexit quagmire and a powerless Theresa May was heading for the departure lounge. Politics had ground to an acrimonious halt.
Twelve months on, we have an optimistic One-Nation Tory Prime Minister with a landslide majority, who was swept back to Downing Street on a wave of enthusiasm and expectation. The voting public emphatically called time on a moribund Parliament stuffed with arrogant MPs who never accepted the referendum result.
Significantly, traditional Labour supporters decided Boris Johnson represented their interests, aspirations and values far more than the hard-Left Islington cult at the helm of their own party.
Jeremy Corbyn was given his marching orders (thank the Lord!), militant Socialism was consigned to the dustbin (again), and the country saved from penury. It was the year decency and hope triumphed over class-hatred, naked antiSemitism and despair.
The stock market leapt at the election result and is predicted to hit record highs in the New Year. Investment has already begun to stream in as confidence returns and more is anticipated. Business, for all its Brexit reservations, is palpably relieved to have dodged the Marxist bullet. So much for the good news. Now the caveats.
Mr Johnson made many promises during the election campaign. In 2020 he must show they are more than empty words.
He will have to deal carefully with Nicola Sturgeon who is (once again) agitating for another independence referendum that the majority of people in Scotland have no appetite for. Despite a resounding No vote in the 2014 poll, the First Minister used her party’s election result to demand that the power to hold another is handed to her by Westminster.
Like Mrs May before him, Mr Johnson has been astute in his handling of the SNP so far and been firm in his refusal to accommodate them. His approach will hearten those who reject Scexit and bodes well for the future of the Union.
As he is well aware, many of the former Labour voters who propelled him to power have merely ‘lent’ him their support. If he lets them down, they will neither forgive, nor forget.
UK government departments should be relocated to areas such as Scotland and the North of England in the forthcoming shakeup of Whitehall and incentives given to large private employers to relocate. Boris has pledged to ‘unite and level up’ the regions. They will be watching.
Then there is Brexit. Leaving the EU on January 31 is just the start. A free trade agreement must be hammered out and our smooth departure made a reality. All this in a year.
The social care system is at breaking point and decisive action can’t be delayed any longer. Until this crisis is solved, no amount of money ploughed into the NHS will ever be enough. Our cutting-edge technical industries – the key to future prosperity – must be supported, while urgent and imaginative responses are demanded to climate change.
So yes, Mr Johnson’s in-tray for 2020 is daunting. And if he is to maintain trust, he must deliver. But he starts with a thumping parliamentary majority and a huge amount of goodwill in the bank. There is an optimism abroad that simply wasn’t there at the beginning of 2019.
It has been a fractious, bad-tempered 12 months. But with our imminent departure from the EU, the principal argument is over and the healing can begin.
On that positive note, may we wish all our readers a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.