2024 in Words
I have always been an optimist, but even through my rose tinted spectacles, 2024 looks like a rather large turd. Only the US seemed to prosper, with a soft landing and an economy ending the year somewhere between strong and booming. The positive numbers were not enough for Uncle Joe though and with the average man still struggling with the cost of living and getting fed up with immigration and foreign policy, a catastrophic defeat was looming. The old man stepped aside and the democrats called for Kamila. Despite her ticking lots of the right boxes from a demographic point of view, her politics didn’t offer up any real substance and she didn’t lay a glove of Trump in the end. The US public had spoken and Donald was back.
That just about covers American politics and so now onto the horrors of war. Russia Vs Ukraine continued to drag on, with the Russians in the ascendency for most of the year. Their incremental daily gains have come at a horrendous cost in both manpower and money, but Putler doesn’t care and victory is seemingly the only outcome his ego will allow.
In the Middle East the horrific plight of the Palestinians has taken a media back seat to the prospect of an all-out war between Israel and Iran and its proxies. The tinder box looked set to explode on various occasions throughout the year, but thankfully never quite took off. As the year ends, things seem somewhat calmer, as Israel’s no nonsense policies have dealt a severe blow to the Iranian proxies and Iran itself watches and waits the return of Donald.
In Syria there was a significant and rather surprising development as the year drew to a close. The HTS group swept through the whole country and deposed the Assad regime in a matter of days (it will be interesting to watch the film about the CIA’s involvement when it’s released in a few years!!!). After 15 years of horrific fighting the ease in which the move took place surprised everyone and embarrassed both Tehran and Moscow, who offered virtually no assistance. On the surface this might actually be considered a rare bit of good news and the revolution was tentatively celebrated in the West. However with Syria’s history and the disasters of Libya and Iraq still very prominent in Western minds, it’s just as easy to imagine this one also going very wrong.
Back in Blighty it was election year, but it’s fair to say things didn’t really reach fever pitch. The Good Ship Sunak had been torpedoed multiple times before he took the reins and he called an early election, presumably to put himself and his beleaguered party out of their misery. The only remaining question was how big would the Labour victory be and the answer was massive! So there was a new sheriff in town, but Starmer’s entry to number 10 was very different to the 90’s when Blair rolled in to the tune of D-reams “things can only get better”. This time it was more like a funeral procession with Starmer reminding us that he has zero charisma, that the Conservatives had screwed us and there was nothing him and Rachel could do about it. If the mood kill couldn’t get any worse, Rachel quickly found a £40 billon hole and told us we would have to wait until October to find out how we would pay it back. The early part of the year had actually produced some surprisingly resilient results for the economy, but with all of the above loaded onto its back the year ended with a very gloomy mood and the UK teetering on the edge of recession. Starmer and Reeves continue to talk about growth, but don’t seem to have actually come up with any policies to kick start it as yet. Perhaps one avenue would be using the special relationship to cling onto the US tail winds, but sending 100 labour staff to help with Kamila’s campaign trail and annoying Trump by choosing Mandelson has probably put pay to that idea for now. Overall it’s been a non-descript start from a non-descript guy and hes starting to run out of chances already.
So with Britain heading left, Europe has been heading in the opposite direction. Fed up with high energy bills, migration and incidents like the Madgeburg Xmas market, the far right are seizing their chance. Putrid of course is loving it and is using every trick in the play book to sow dissent and to try and influence leaders who are more sympathetic to his murderous cause. At a time when Europe needs its big players to be strong, both France and Germany are in various states of political disarray and are having to sort out their own back yard. Germany’s terrible energy mistakes also continue to cast a long and dark shadow over the whole continent as prices continue to rise to recent highs. With Russian transit set to end and the weather gods being less kind this time around, the discontent on the continent might only just have started.
Spain also had a troublesome year, with the locals finally getting fed up of Airbnb and the bad behaviour of British tourists. Water pistols were drawn and fired in Tenerife, Barcelona and Malaga to name but a few. It will be interesting to see how the Spanish authorities try and balance local dissent and an industry that is the lifeblood of the Spanish economy.
October also bought disaster to Spain, when Valencia saw 2 months of rain fall in the space of just 10 hours. Hundreds were killed with many thousands more injured or displaced from their homes.
Things are not all going Putin’s way however and it appears that we are about to have a show down in Georgia. The people are not accepting the non-democratic processes being forced on them by Putins puppet government and protests are huge as the next president is set to be sworn in, with the previous incumbent refusing to leave. One can only hope the peaceful protests don’t turn into a blood bath.
Looking East, 2024 wasn’t a great year for China either. Growth was good by most countries standards, but by China’s own remarkable benchmarks it was stalling. This was despite numerous government initiatives to boost domestic and international confidence. The main problem for the Chinese was the property sector, with the Evergrande Group going bust, thousands of properties remaining unsold and new property owners left in negative equity as prices tumbled.
As well as the economy looking shaky, the Chinese have had to deal with tariffs on the automotive sector, threatening to turn into a real over supply problem at home and a general worsening of relations with the west. Lastly President Xi has had to watch on as Putin and Kim have built a burgeoning and dangerous looking partnership.
I guess I need to mention debt, because if there is one thing in the world that is plentiful, its debt!!! The Americans have lots of it, the Europeans have lots of it, so do the Chinese and pretty much everyone else. It’s fine though, because no one is talking about paying it back just yet, so we can forget about it for another year and watch it grow and prosper.
From a sporting point of view the major stories were in football and the Olympics. England and Southgate bored their way to the Euros final, before rightly loosing to a Spanish team who finally put England fans out of our abject misery. Man United continued to defy their critics, by getting even worse every time people thought they had finally reached a turning point and Manchester City have completely imploded in a miserable clean sweep for Manchester.
Pep is one of the sporting leaders I admire the most, he is a born winner and oozes class, integrity, discipline and man management skills, but he has never been in a situation like this before. I watch with great interest to see if the great man can turn this around and I genuinely believe he will. Hopefully a few other teams win some trophies first though!!
The Paris Olympics and Paralympics were both very special events and really were a rare highlight for France and the world.
From a personal point of view 2024 didn’t really deliver either. It seems that at 45 the thousands of games of football has finally started to take its toll on my body and I had lots of niggly and annoying injuries. I was ill a lot as well, including on holidays and at Xmas. Taking me away from football, the gym and the outdoors is the worst thing possible for me and I hated it! We have had some pretty rubbish family and personal problems as well, which shall remain personal, but suffice to say an amazing partner/family and friends and communication go a long way to making problem episodes as bearable as possible. To finish on a positive note, “Lust for Life Coaching” has gone from strength to strength and I am immensely proud of my business. Turnover is up 50% again, but far more importantly for me, I have watched so many of my clients flourish.
The Conclusion
So with Xmas behind us, the world now waits nervously at the gates of 2025 for the return of one man. From Tel Aviv to Toronto, from Moscow to Mexico City everyone is trying to anticipate what Donald will do and what it will mean for them.
Only time will tell if his second coming is one of a Messiah, but strangely that old feeling of optimism is back for me and I’m thinking he just might.
Have a great 2025 everyone and if you want to do something good together, please DM me.
Rob