The good, the bad and the bizarre of 2016

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DONALD TRUMP: Publicly admitted he doesn’t pay taxes.

Have you recovered yet? No, not from your annual boozathon, but from 2016. What a year for pollsters, pundits, bookies getting it wrong! First, Brexit, then Donald Trump. Yes, if only Michael Fish (remember him?) had been plying his trade last year, he’d have looked bang-on.

It’s too early to say where 2016 will rank in modern world history compared with, say,1914 and 1939. But it was undoubtedly the most dramatic moment in British politics since the Second World War. Plus, the USA elected a president who publicly admitted he gropes women, doesn’t pay taxes and, reportedly, summarised his future Republican supporters thus in People Magazine: “they believe anything… I could lie and they’d still eat it up.” I mean, what do you have to do to be unelectable?

Add that to the deaths of so many celebrities, and it’s difficult to see how 2017 could be any more ‘surprising.’ But then, consider what’ll be happening. The Supreme Court ruling, the triggering of Article 50, Trump’s inauguration, the French and German elections, Russian and Chinese expansionism, the next inevitable terrorist attack and our response to it. Maybe we’re heading for more of the same – 2016 Mark II? 

As wishes for 2017 go, mine are pretty modest. Of course, a complete end to war, disease and famine.

But if I can’t have that, maybe I can have something a little easier to achieve: an open, grown-up and serious debate about the future of the NHS (not helped by recent news of foreign patients running up £30m of unpaid NHS bills in one year) and of the Government’s foreign aid spending target of 0.7 per cent of GDP (despite some worthwhile projects, enormous sums of taxpayers’ money are currently wasted and would be surely better allocated to hard-pressed defence, healthcare and education).

And as for the Brexit/Trump aspect: yes, who knows what the future holds, but there’s been worse: the Blitz, for example.

For some, 2016 is set to take its place alongside 9/11, 24/7 and 360 as numerical descriptors that become words. 

So, 2016: never again, please!  

Nora Johnson’s psychological/suspense crime thrillers ‘No Way Back,’ ‘Landscape of Lies,’ ‘Retribution,’ ‘Soul Stealer,’ ‘The De Clerambault Code’ (www.nora-johnson.com) available from Amazon in paperback/eBook (€0.99;£0.99) and iBookstore.All profits to Costa del Sol Cudeca cancer charity.

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Comments


    • Mike in ESP

      06 January 2017 • 21:54

      I am looking forward, to going forward in 2017 and for the UK to start a new direction on coming out of the EU. I am looking forward to a great opportunity for the UK to take advantage of… and hoping that it will!
      I am interested in how Trump handles his presidency and if his different way of doing things 🙂 will be advantageous for Americans “Couldn’t be much worse than Bush and Obama”.

      I hope that the EU elite face up to the damage caused by the economic stagnation and unemployment in southern EU mainly caused by the Euro by getting rid of it! I also look forward to the EU elite sorting out the problems caused by them on immigration caused by Angela Merkel and their inactions on covering their eyes up to what they knew was going on for years!

      I am confident and positive on the UK and US side but have absolutely no confidence in the EU elite sorting out the issues they need to sort out in EU countries, my guess they will have their heads in the sand as normal and be more interested in changing the shape of bananas or something else that is totally irrelevant!

      Whatever happens, I Hope everyone has a great 2017 🙂

    • Chris

      07 January 2017 • 11:47

      Like the mention of Michael Fish-remember him well!:)

    Comments are closed.