Just to cheer you up

+For some reason there always seems to be a slew of deaths of famous people at the end of the year. This year we’ve seen Pope Benedict, Vivienne Westwood, John Bird and others hit the buffers. Amongst them was Alice Mahon, the former MP for Halifax, who was an anti-war campaigner and a doughty critic of Tony Blair. Kier Starmer gave her a boiler-plate ‘she served her constituents’ type of tribute, thanking God that his New-New Labour Party is expelling or expunging any parliamentary candidate who could vaguely resemble Alice. Meanwhile, Our Dear Leader has released a New Year’s message in which he promises to unleash a ‘new kind of politics.’ Listening to this message is on my to-do list. Perhaps for next year.
 
+And what kind of year will 2023 be? (Happy New Year, by the way.) Probably not much better than 2022, the legacy of which is nowhere played out. Covid is back in the news, the Ukraine war is more closely resembling a slugfest, inflation and recession will dominate the economic landscape. We will be treated to the start of the US Presidential election cycle (hopefully Donald J. Trump’s tax returns will finally kill off his reputation as a businessman and even his followers will recognise him as a serial loser), in the UK another Tory leadership coup may be in the offing, as the innate racism within Tory ranks combined with the effects of the stumbling economy stir the self-preservation instincts of Tory MPs. All this doom and gloom will be buttressed by the inevitable consequences of climate change—with some surprising ’once in a century’ (now once in a decade) weather events happening. After the North American ‘bomb cyclone’ this year some fans will be reaching for their old DVD of The Day After Tomorrow. Perhaps it was no fantasy after all. But all is not doom and gloom. We will have the glorious coronation of King Charley 3 in the Summer, an event guaranteed to multiply the number of mugs in circulation everywhere.