New Year's Eve: time to reflect and look ahead

2023 has been a strange, manic, uplifting and disheartening year, and there's no reason to think 2024 will be any different in tenor, so I've looked back and forward

My late mother hated New Year’s Eve. So do Jennifer Lawrence and Amanda Holden. It turns out the magnificent Hannah Betts, whom I revere, is very down on it too. The mercurial Tory MP Alan Clark despised it, while John Wyclif, Robert Boyle and Marshall McLuhan were probably at best ambivalent, as they all died on 31 December. There was even a musical romantic comedy made a few years ago called I Hate New Year’s (no, me neither).

It’s easy to see why, because it’s a day which doubles up on obligation: you are expected to party as hard as any time of the year, but also prepare yourself for a fresh start and a new 365-day period in which Everything Will Be Different. That weight of expectation is rarely supportable. I’m ambivalent: I’ve had some fantastic New Year’s Eve and Hogmanay celebrations, from the weird event in Edinburgh in the late 1990s at which I realised the girl playing the violin with such verve was Eliza Carthy, to the evening when my sister and her friends abandoned their plans to the banks of the Thames to see the fireworks, we stood in a crowd on the Mall with a bottle of Jägermeister passed round and I found a cigar in my coat pocket.

It is, of course, a peculiar tyranny of our mongrel calendar. We use a solar-based system devised by Julius Caesar two years before his violent death, modified in the 1580s by Pope Gregory XIII, a Bolognese lawyer who came to holy orders relatively late in life (he was 56 when he was ordained) and is therefore the last pontiff to have had children (that we know of). In Britain, suspicious of anything emerging from Rome, we resisted the new calendar for nearly 200 years, only passing the Calendar (New Style) Act in 1750. That, of course, meant that Ireland and our colonial possessions adopted it too.

Even then, England had for centuries observed the rhythm of the legal year, which began on Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March), while record-keeping since the 12th century had marked the regnal years of kings and queens; until 1962, acts of Parliament were cited by the regnal year in which the relevant parliamentary session fell, so that, for example, the Parliament Act 1911 is formally cited as “1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 13”, as it is the 13th “chapter” of the (notional) statute book from the first and second years of George V’s reign.

All of this means that 31 December is a date chosen not quite at random but forced upon us by a number of influences, many of which we would now reject, and it has importance only insofar as we give it that influence. But we do, and a year is about as much as any of us can take of any human existence before we need to pause and reset. I want to take the opportunity, therefore, to look back and forward like Janus, the two-faced Roman god after whom next month is literally named. I will break this down into sections, because it’s that time of year and we’re all tired.

That was the year that was

I write principally about politics, and it was a busy and seemingly mad and manic year, but they all seem to be these days. When was the last year of which we could say “meh”? 2013, maybe? Even then, we had a papal election (following the first abdication since 1415), the Boston Marathon bombing, Mohamed Morsi was deposed as president of Egypt, Kevin Rudd returned to the premiership of Australia (briefly) and poor Fuslier Lee Rigby was cut down in the street by a pair of psychopathic Islamic extremists.

City AM asked me to write a short review of the year in politics, which appeared on 27 December. Given my failings as a self-editor, it was an especially challenging task to come in under the word limit, but I think it at least sketches out the vague contours of British politics. I didn’t tackle the convulsions in the Scottish National Party: Nicola Sturgeon resigned unexpectedly as first minister, a bitter leadership contest ensued in which Humza Yousaf, a second-rate politician at his best, defeated the young but able Kate Forbes, Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell, long-time chief executive of the SNP, was arrested as part of a fraud inquiry, the party treasurer, Colin Beattie, resigned, was arrested and released without charge, and Sturgeon herself was questioned by police.

Internationally, everything is now under the shadow of the Hamas massacre of 7 October and the subsequent conflict in Gaza, but the war in Ukraine grinds on, a Ukrainian victory now looking less likely (though it is still not easy to see how the conflict ends). The septuagenarian socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in for a new term as president of Brazil (his last was 2003-10). Jacinda Ardern resigned as prime minister of New Zealand, being succeeded by police minister Chris Hipkins, who then lost October’s general election to Christopher Luxon of the National Party. Kevin McCarthy, who replaced Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the US House of Representatives when the Republican majority formally took control, was ousted messily in favour of a socially conservative Southern Baptist from Louisiana, Mike Johnson; before his fall, McCarthy had initiated impeachment proceedings against President Biden.

If I could make one general observation, it would be that we are continuing to lose nuance and breadth of reaction. Every event must be greeted by DefCon 1, with emotions going from a standing start to maximum revs: a politician must resign, or be locked up, or engage in a kind of self-damnatio memoriae, whatever the offence. So Joe Biden must be impeached for financial corruption, for using his influence to help his son’s business prospects, for threatening US national security. Equally J.K. Rowling’s views on gender mean she and her work must be disowned, much-loved childhood books declared anathema, fellow authors resigning from the literary agency which represents her.

We simply talk to each other less, because we are not willing to listen. To listen, to attempt to understand, is seen as surrender. Rather people choose to stay away, or seek to disrupt or de-platform. There is no need to debate, because winning an argument is unnecessary when you know you are morally correct and pure. The bleakness of this was summed up for me a few years ago when Sunny Singh, a professor of creative writing with a research interest in decolonisation and inclusion, tweeted that she always declined invitations to debate:

because debate is an imperialist capitalist white supremacist cis heteropatriarchal technique that transforms a potential exchange of knowledge into a tool of exclusion and oppression.

Her academic work, she went explained, was based around “reparative work” which is “slow, immersive and contemplative”. Perhaps she’s right. But how we are to have public conversations and reach conclusions without debate, and without, ultimately, winning and losing is beyond me.

Perhaps 2024 will be better! Let us hold on to that thought. In the meantime, let me approach the departing year in a few different ways.

From the pen of…

It has been a productive year, I hope. My word count certainly seems to be high. Most of you will know that my published work is compiled here by the fabulous tool Authory. I continue to write a weekly column for City AM, which I’ve been doing for more than three years now, and it’s great discipline as well as an enjoyable outlet. (I’m now working with my third features editor but I’m trying not to blame myself for any departures.) It has allowed me to cover a wide range of subjects, from chess to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and with a monthly online readership of two million, it’s a good place to be. In July, the paper was bought by THG, and there seems to be a sense of optimism and purpose about it, as Andy Silvester, the excellent editor, has chronicled.

While working on the assumption that you are all dedicated readers of every word I write down (I’m kidding), I wanted to pick out a few things I’ve written this year of which I’m proud, or which caught a particular mood, or which expressed an idea or a concern that I think is going to come back again and again. One of the strange elements of writing about politics is that you have this tension between absolute ephemera, judgements or an analyses so completely of the moment that they will be out of date within 24 hours, and attempts to articulate enduring themes, or explore problems which are part of the long-term political landscape. I hope I strike a reasonable balance: I don’t want to be a sensationalist producer of nothing more than tomorrow’s fish-and-chip wrappers, but I would like to think I bring immediacy to a topic and not (always) descend into the polysyllabic fug of an academic treatise.

1) In February, Rishi Sunak met Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, to discuss Northern Ireland and the unsatisfactory protocol to the UK’s withdrawal agreement from the EU which was causing enormous unrest. The two leaders agreed a new arrangement, the Windsor Framework, which seemed to answer some of those criticisms, and in City AM I urged the prime minister to try to find a way to allow the Democratic Unionist Party to participate in devolved government at Stormont. I was unusually optimistic, as I think now there is no real hope of a deal which brings all parties together, but I think I was right to say that “the support of the party [the DUP] would have symbolic importance, but it would also be a diplomatic coup in international terms for a prime minister whose expertise still lies elsewhere”. Sadly, I think it’s beyond his grasp now.

2) This City AM column from April was, I think, the first commentary I made on Taiwan, but it’s an issue that has come to occupy me a lot. I’m more certain than I’d like to be that China will stage some kind of action against Taiwan within the next five years, even if it falls short of all-out military action in the conventional sense. I think Xi Jinping feels it is essential for his legacy to address “reunification”, and it will ask very hard questions of the United States. How far are they willing to go to protect an ally? It’s not just about symbolism—though that is important—but Taiwan is the world’s major producer of semi-conductors. This is a fight which could be like the beat of a butterfly’s wings in the Himalayas, its effects felt far and wide. We need to have thought through as many scenarios as possible and know how we’ll react.

3) In May there were rumours that Lord Frost, Boris Johnson’s one-time special adviser and chief Brexit negotiator, might seek election to the House of Commons. The idea seems to have faded into the background for the moment, but in The i, I explained why I think the self-appointed guardian of some kind of Johnsonian flame is not the solution to the Conservative Party’s problems. He is full of self-assurance, and I stand by my criticisms when I said he demonstrated “a dash of sly Continental-bashing, the belief that crude simplicity is daring heterodoxy, an ability to turn a shamelessly blind eye to his own previous misjudgements and an abiding belief in doubling down when in trouble”.

4) In May, veteran foreign correspondent John Sweeney released a film about his experiences in Ukraine, The Eastern Front. I was invited to a preview and wrote about it for CulturAll, the digital arts journal I run with Alex Matchett and Mariana Holguín. It is a brutal, devastating, deeply affecting film which leaves you in no doubt that this is an existential conflict for Ukrainians, and that Vladimir Putin keeps nothing off the table in his desire to win and to crush Ukraine as a country and a very concept. The film has won a slew of awards, deservedly, and if you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend it. This is a war which is happening in Europe, only a few hundred miles away from tourist destinations, and how it progresses will affect our futures in all kinds of ways.

5) For a while it looked as if the then-defence secretary, Ben Wallace, who was keen to leave the Ministry of Defence after four long years, might be emerging as a candidate to replace Jens Stoltenberg as secretary general of NATO. Ben would have been a good choice in a lot of ways, and it’s going to be a big job with a lot of reform to tackle. But, as I wrote in The Critic in July, it became obvious that President Joe Biden was exercising the US veto and would not let Wallace get the job. This annoyed me, as it was not a judgement made in favour of another candidate: we still don’t know how will take over, though former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is now starting to express an interest. But I think the Alliance has missed a chance to bring in a dynamic and gutsy choice, and I don’t trust Biden’s motives for saying no.

6) Over the summer, the British Film Institute, a place and an organisation I love, showed Carol Reed’s post-war masterpiece The Third Man. It’s comfortably my favourite film, and in my opinion one of the best ever made, famed for its moody, noirish cinematography of ruined Vienna, Orson Welles’s dazzling but brief turn as Harry Lime and the crazy, perfect zither music of Anton Karas. Watching for the umpteenth time, slouched down in the dark, possibly in a strange mood, I had a sudden but profound revelation: the real heart of the film is Anna Schmidt, the actress played by Alida Valli, and her bleak, inconsolable grief. As I wrote in CulturAll, for Anna there is no prospect of happiness or redemption. The world is cold and hostile, she is hollowed out by sadness, and that will remain the case until she dies. It’s not an encouraging perspective, though it’s characteristic of Graham Greene, who wrote the screenplay, but it makes it, for me, an even more profound and affecting work of art.

7) I returned to the future of NATO for my debut in The Hill, the serious-minded platform for “nonpartisan reporting on the inner workings of Government and the nexus of politics and business”. Former national security advisor John Bolton had given an interview in which he had warned that Donald Trump, whom he had served for 18 months but for whom he has little but contempt, could, if re-elected in 2024, pull the United States out of NATO. It would be a disaster for the alliance, which relies on American resources, but some of Trump’s criticisms are valid. At least some of them could be addressed, and the European members have to take on a bigger share of defence spending. As I concluded, “if NATO is to be shaken up and future-proofed, time is running out.”

8) I’ve been thinking a lot more about the future of the British armed forces. Ben Wallace has done a good job in shoring up the defence budget, but we are still desperately under-funded and over-stretched. In my debut for The Spectator, I looked at this through the prism of General Sir Roly Walker, who will take over as chief of the General Staff and professional head of the British Army in June 2024. Walker’s background is in special forces and irregular warfare, and I questioned the extent to which this will shape his conception of the role of the army. It may be that it’s the sort of fighting at which we’re best, and that we should get out of the business of heavy armour and conventional tank-on-tank conflict, but that would be a huge change in our strategic posture and only a decision we should reach after intensive debate and analysis.

9) In November, for CapX, that bracingly curious home of innovation, competition, free trade and economic liberty, I considered the fate of the British pub and tried to strip away some of the mythology and lazy thinking. We are told almost every quarter that public houses are in mortal danger and need this or that intervention to save the species. I love pubs: although it’s more than five years since I set aside the grog, I still enjoy pubs as homes of conviviality, comfort and reassurance. But we often fail to ask a basic question: if fewer of us are going to pubs, is the explanation that they no longer provide the services and facilities that people want? Surely the hospitality industry needs to look at itself as well as society to understand not only what is wrong but also what can be done about it.

10) Earlier this month, I decided it was time to devote some attention to the nuts and bolts of a Labour government, since, however deep-rooted my Tory instincts might be, that seems an almost-inevitable outcome of the general election which we expect in 2024. In my City AM column, I focused on foreign policy: it’s an area in which Sir Keir Starmer has little experience, but there is very little depth to the background of most of his foreign affairs practitioners, from shadow foreign secretary David Lammy to the hordes of pollsters and opinion-shapers who dominate the Leader of the Opposition’s Office. This raises the question of how effective a new Labour administration will be, at least in its early days, and whether it will simply become a prisoners of the Whitehall machine.

11) After a hiatus, I started writing again for Spear’s Magazine, the journal for ultra-high net worth individuals and those who work with them. It’s a very specialist market but I like finding issues I think I can add a useful perspective on, especially at the intersection of business and politics. As someone with a streak of the bureaucrat forever in him, after more than a decade as a parliamentary official, I’ve long been interested by the rise of the “chief of staff” in the private sector from its military origins in Prussia and then in the British Army. For the current issue, I traced the development of the role, looking at the kinds of duties a chief of staff can usefully carry out, the sort of people who do the job, and where you can go from there. The feedback I’ve had is that it was a useful pulling-together of various strands, so I hope it was valuable service. I enjoyed writing it.

12) I end the year on Ukraine, which seems appropriate. Although our attention has been stolen by Gaza and by domestic concerns, the war rages on. Since I saw John Sweeney’s film in May, we have seen a surge of optimism, the faltering of the Russian offensive, a Ukrainian counetr-attack which some thought might change the game, and its descent into static, grinding trench warfare. Now, as I wrote for The Hill, Republican lawmakers are losing their enthusiasm for the conflict, harbour increasing doubts about Volodymyr Zelenskyy, dislike the sums of money being spent and want to look more closely at domestic threats. As a result, they are at the moment refusing to pass a bill which would generate more funding for Kyiv. But have they thought this through? Have they pursued the logic of their position through its likely stages to the defeat of Ukraine and beyond? Because I have tried to do so and I don’t find any scenarios which serve US strategic interests.

There have been good times…

Let’s keep things positive. What has gone well this year? What will I look back on as highlights of 2023?

In personal terms, I had my first outings in some publications which I really like: The Spectator is always a great read because it’s so free-wheeling and unpredictable, and there are some contributors whom I always enjoy reading, like Rory Sutherland, Katy Balls, Freddy Gray, Philip Hensher and Julie Burchill; The Hill is a challenge for someone not brought up on Beltway politics from childhood but it’s one which stretches you rather than just leaves you despondent and covers a huge amount of ground. I’ve also written a couple of pieces for The Daily Express, which is a very different platform and has required some tailoring of style and sharpening of my message, but it has a hefty circulation (albeit down this year on last) and I’m always happy to look at a way to reach readers I wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to address.

I also took my first leap into my old stamping ground but from a different perspective: deciding that grumbling without action was a lazy option, I submitted written evidence to a select committee for the first time. The House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, chaired by Conservative William Wragg, is conducting an inquiry into the membership of the House of Lords, so I tried to boil down my views, reinforce the evidential basis and take out the more emotional spasms and sent them a memorandum. So far the inquiry has only held one evidence session, with—I think they would have to admit to this—two of the usual suspects, Professor Meg Russell, director of the UCL Constitution Unit, and Lord Norton of Louth, professor of government at the University of Hull.

Away from commentary, I’ve continued to enjoy The Writing Salon, hosted by my good friend, business partner, inspiration and guru, Mark Heywood, and always draw inspiration from being with other writers. I was flattered to have a short story accepted for the third anthology from the Salon, to be published next year, having had pieces in the first two volumes. (Buy them! They’re very good!) We think we’re the only creative writing group which publishes members’ work in this way: it’s certainly been a great exercise so far and the standard—leaving myself out of this—has been incredibly high.

Anything else? Well, I’m still here. That’s not to be sniffed at. For one reason or another, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about my parents—gone six and three years ago this year—not in an unremittingly miserable way, but with reflection, affection, sorrow, of course, but always, always gratitude. To the few people I know who’ve suffered similar losses, I’ve been reluctant to offer advice, because I think it can be misguided, but what I have told them is that in my experience (because it can never be more than that) grief and loss are not linear; you don’t start at 100 per cent the moment that a loved one dies, and then gradually shed that burden until you’re down to a level you can manage. It comes and goes, sometimes naturally enough, like around anniversaries, and sometimes entirely unexpectedly. At this distance, I have to say that my most common trigger now is seeing, hearing or reading something and wanting to share it with one of them, and there is a fleeting moment, probably less than a second if you could measure it, during which you prepare to reach for your phone, or start mentally composing a text message, and then you remember: no, I can’t. They’re not there any more. And that’s saddening. Will it diminish or go away? I don’t know. I’m prepared for the possibility it might not.

People who’ve made a difference

This is invidious, because omissions might be taken personally, but we’ll all have to put on our big boy/big girl pants and cope with that. I think my nearest and dearest know the esteem in which they’re held—they ought to, anyway—so I’ll risk taking that as read. But some honourable mentions.

As always, my business partners and friends, Mark Heywood and Christian Hunt, have been a constant source of cheer, humour, a “safe space” to curse the stupidity of the world but, more than anything, spurs to thought and action.

Christian has a deep appreciation for the absurdity of the world, but also, as someone who deals in behavioural science, is brilliant at making me look at things in terms of basic human reactions: why do people act like that? How can you harness that response? What does this response say about people across different disciplines? He’s also partly resident in Germany now, though trains seem to play a large part in his life, and so he’s been a great source of wisdom and insights about German politics, of which I know a little but could always know more. The opportunity to ask “daft laddie” questions is hugely valuable and enormously appreciated. Earlier this year he published an excellent book, Humanizing Rules: Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics and Compliance, which I strongly recommend you all buy and read. His podcast, Human Risk, is a treasure trove of interviews with guests chosen because Christian thinks they’ll be interesting, and they invariably are. Two I’ve enjoyed particularly in the past few months have been his conversations with expert of major programme management Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, and brilliant, fluent, charismatic German historian Katja Hoyer.

Mark is someone in whose company I end up thinking of a thousand new things I can and must do. He has taught me to see the narrative arc in everything, and to make connections where you might not have seen them at first. And he has a gift for making you realise you can do more than you think without for a moment employing false flattery or encouraging excessive self-regard. His podcast Behind the Spine, which I was delighted to play some small role in getting up and running in 2020, just goes from strength to strength and is in its eighth series; and he’s now in demand with would-be guests rather than the other way round, which is brilliant. A particular triumph recently was his special episode on the 60th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, which was recorded in video as well as audio. Watch it. It’s gripping. Mark is also an invaluable test bed, because he’s kind but honest, for theories or ideas I’ve been dwelling on, and a lot of articles and essays I’ve written bear his imprint somewhere in them.

It has been an enormous pleasure to get to know Ian Acheson, who writes regularly for The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph and CapX, among other outlets. Ian is a visiting professor at Staffordshire University’s School of Justice, Security and Sustainability, but has had an impressive career (so far!) in HM Prison Service, as a senior Home Office official working in community safety and security, as COO of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and now in the private sector, advising on the broad sweep of security, counter-extremism, counter-radicalisation, criminal justice reform and policing. (He also has a lovely Fermanagh accent, for aficionados of that sort of thing.) His combination of imaginative thinking and the hard foundations of front-line experience make him a good commentator but—if I can be solipsistic—also give me an invaluable sounding board of good sense against which I can test notions and theories before I release them into the wild. And he’s very good company.

An adieu, but only in directly professional terms, to Sascha O’Sullivan, who has been my editor at City AM for almost three years but next month moves to Politico as co-host of the Westminster Insider podcast. She’s been a wonderfully diplomatic and indulgent wrangler of my prose, only occasionally firing a distress flare when drafts are far too long, and has a great journalistic sense for saying aye or no to ideas, suggesting subjects I hadn’t thought of and nudging half-formed thoughts towards much sharper and more immediate appeal. If she’s ever had cause to curse me, she’s been polite enough to keep it to herself, and has just generally been a cheerful and sensible and pragmatic presence when my deadline day comes around. I look forward to her regular broadcasts in 2024.

An inestimable joy of 2023 has been getting to know Kara Kennedy Clairmont (as she now is, having married Nick this summer). I’d first been introduced to her in the margins of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham last year (full disclosure: by “margins” I mean “a Wetherspoons”) but it wasn’t until this year I spoke to her at any length. At that point she was working for The Spectator’s US edition, but has now gone freelance. Terrifyingly young, she produces, for me, some of the most instinctively good, bravura writing around: honest, fearless, sharply observed and funny. Her article in The Spectator in March about her home town of Pontypridd, the “murder capital of Wales”, was remarkable: elegant, shocking, profound but utterly unsensationalist.

In 2015, my town saw its most famous killing. This one even got us our own episode of the TV documentary Murdertown. I’ll start at the end: in April of that year, police officers were sent to question Christopher May—who had been a butcher for 20 years—at his flat after complaints of a ‘foul smell’. One of the officers described it as ‘gone-off meat or food’, another compared it to ‘cat’s urine’. When they pulled back the shower curtain to investigate, they found pairs of dismembered arms and legs.

Just as admirable as her craft is her curiosity: she’s been immersed recently in Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, and has turned her hand to book reviews and profiles, as well as profound wisdom in sartorial matters. It’s always refreshing to see anyone enjoy what they do, and do well, but Kara’s sheer delight in writing is heart-warming. What’s next? I have no idea. I don’t know if she does. But it will be worth tuning in for.

A final word for one of my best and oldest friends, Peter Murray, who has decided to scratch a long-present itch (I told him to go to the doctor) and emigrate. He begins 2024 literally on the other side of the world, in New Zealand, a place he has visited often and loves. I first met him on a cold, drizzly autumnal day in St Andrews in the October 1999, and our encounter was at that point incidental: I was there to see his flatmate, and he opened the door. But we rapidly, tacitly but emphatically decided that we could do business together, went for a pint and the rest is… well, you know what they say. We have both come a long way since then, in separate but occasionally intertwining careers, and it is his curse that I have both a good memory and photographs. We even lived together in Chiswick for a time, in what would have been the hands-down oddest remake of The Odd Couple in history: the fact that our housewarming party was sponsored by Cobra Beer I think says everything. He begins a new life, for the time being, in 2024, and the Kiwis are very lucky to have him.

I must also pay tribute to all the patient souls who have edited my work this year: they are many but know who they are and I am always grateful. What I will say is that, whenever you sigh at some egregious verbal formulation, or begin disentangling an excessively long sentence, know that the worst was persuaded out of me by Allie Dickinson, who rarely flinched or ducked on that editorial firing step, and who has done a service to humanity.

To family and friends: you make everything more bearable, which is all anyone can ask, and Sartre was more right than usual when he said “L’enfer, c’est les autres”, but he didn’t mean you.

A whole new world

So we roll into 2024. In politics, my main focus at the moment, it will be bumpy: almost certainly a general election here in the UK, definitely a presidential contest in the United States (will Donald Trump be on the ballot?), elections in Mexico and Venezuela, India and Pakistan, a presidential vote in Taiwan which I will watch closely, and a definitely-completely-wide-open-unpredictable re-election of Vladimir Putin as president of the Russian Federation in March. (He was elected in 2012 and 2018, having already served from 2000 to 2008 and then spent four years as prime minister, but amendments to the constitution approved in 2020 allow him to stand twice more, so, assuming his health holds out and there is no coup d’état against him, expect him to be in the Kremlin till 2036.)

I am trying to read more. My to-read pile is no longer a “pile” so much as strewing or a jumble, several shelves’ worth, and I doubt I’ll shake my Amazon habit any time soon. But it’s good, I think, always to have things you should be reading about, becoming more informed, filling out your view of the world and of humanity. When we stop learning, we die.

I am still, slowly slowly, writing a book. I have said to several people, partly as deliberate hostages to fortune, that I want to write about oratory in Parliament, when it’s done well, why it is now largely not, how it can be better and why it matters. And I still am. Friends are aware that I can provide lengthy disquisitions on the subject, but the words are gradually making their way to the page. It may be a slow process but it is definitely moving in the right direction.

Several commentators have issued lists of predictions for the forthcoming year. I won’t, at least at this stage, partly because the last 18 months in politics have been chastening for anyone who follows it professionally. Whether it was Grant Shapps having five portfolios inside a year (including less than a week as home secretary); Wendy Morton resigning as Liz Truss’s chief whip only to rescind the decision the following day while her deputy, Craig Whittaker, strode through the division lobbies declaring “I am fucking furious and I don’t fucking care anymore”; Sir Keir Starmer taking to the pages of The Sunday Telegraph to praise Margaret Thatcher for “setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism”; or Police Scotland seizing a £110,000 motorhome belonging to the SNP from outside the Dunfermline home of Nicola Sturgeon’s 92-year-old mother-in-law; there have been many events of which you could fairly say, “No, I hold my hands up, I didn’t have that on my bingo card”.

I will conclude, then, simply by thanking readers of this blog. I can’t say with 100 per cent honesty that you make it worthwhile, because a) at the moment it’s still free and b) I just enjoy doing it and might well be doing it anyway if Substack hadn’t made it so easy to broadcast, but it is genuinely, sincerely heartening to hear people occasionally say that they’ve enjoyed this or that piece. I try to choose subjects that are not utterly recherché, and sometimes which cast new light on something in the news, but there are also essays which fall into the category of “I wanted to get this off my chest”. For whatever reason you read it, however many of the articles you read, whatever you talke away from them, I thank you, and encourage you to tell your friends, acquaintances, colleagues, neighbours, people you pass in the street… Spread the joy. And do that more generally. We’re all just trying to get through to the end of the day.