2009: A Year in Current Affairs
Twelve months ago there was a shop called Woolworths, Michael Jackson was planning 40 nights at the O2 Arena and taxpayers were unaware they had bought a duck house and adult movies.
Yes, 2009 has been a busy year. It has been dominated by MPs expenses and the credit crunch but the last year of the noughties was also the year of swine flu, Somali pirates, the end of the Tamil Tigers and 104 British deaths in Afghanistan.
The expenses scandal, unearthed by The Daily Telegraph in May, has cast a shadow over UK politics from which it seems it may not recover. Numerous current members have been forced to either resign or not seek re-election and Sir Thomas Legg has made no friends asking several of them to pay back expenses retrospectively.
The big name resignation was Speaker of the House Michael Martin, the first speaker to be forced out in 300 years. However, his successor was not without controversy. John Bercow began his career as a staunch right winger but won the election for speaker thanks to support from Labour who favour his maturing moderate tendencies.
However this years Lazareth Award goes to Peter Mandleson.
The EU Trade Commissioner rejoined UK politics after two resignations as a Lord and has been instrumental in keeping Labour in with a shot at next year’s election.As he said at the Labour party conference ‘Tony said our project would only be complete when the Labour Party learned to love Peter Mandelson.’
Although Mandleson has certainly stopped the free-fall in Labour’s polling numbers this year certainly belongs to Conservative leader David Cameron.The Prime Minister elect has been on great form both inside and out of the House of Commons, despite his communications director being implicated in tapping phone calls from members of the royal family while editor of The News of the World.
BNP leader Nick Griffin was a regular fixture this year winning a seat in the European Parliament and contentiously appearing on BBC flagship Question Time where he struggled against some tough interrogation.
Outside of Westminster it has also been a busy political year.
The EU appointed its first President and Foreign Minister in Belgian PM Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton respectively, a decision heavily criticised for lacking public involvement and ignoring diplomatic heavy weights like Tony Blair.
This was not the first time Europe had caused controversy in 2009.
In August Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, otherwise known as the Lockerbie bomber, was released on companionate grounds from a Scottish prison cell and returned to a heroes welcome in Libya.
This caused a huge stir across the world but most notably in America, where most of the victims had come from. The Secretary of State and heads of the FBI and CIA objected to his transfer despite al-Magrahi suffering from terminal cancer.
Later in the year another trial halfway across the globe caused a stir in the United States when American student Amanda Knox was convicted in Italy of the brutal murder of British student Meredith Kercher. The effects of the American complaints, which are heavily critical of the Italian police and legal system, are not likely to be known soon and Miss Knox will spend a significant amount of time behind bars in Italy.
In America the infamous Washington sniper John Allen Muhammad, who shot and killed ten people over three weeks in 2002, was put to death in Virginia after failing in his appeal to the US Supreme Court.
There has however been some good across the pond. In January the first black President was inaugurated (Twice), but President Obama has since seen his approval ratings crumble. He did controversially win the Nobel Peace Prize for his ‘aspirations’ towards world peace beating Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Recently Obama was forced to deal with substantial backlash from proposed health care reforms which, in a diluted form, now look set to take effect in 2010,
However, he did fail in his attempt to close Guantanamo Bay detention centre by the end of this year, although it may now move to Illinois.
2009 did see one detainee return to England. Binyam Mohammed had been held at the Cuban army base and is now searching to prosecute his captors for prolonged torture over his four year stay.
This his year it was an act of domestic terrorism which shook America to its core. In November at Fort Hood, Texas, 13 were left dead after an American Army psychiatrist went on the rampage. This was followed on Christmas Day with the attempted attack on a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit where a British educated Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up the plane. In 2006 the liquid bomb plot caused a similar security scare and the men responsible for the attempted attack were found guilty in the UK this year and were all given hefty prison sentences.
According to Bush, Blair, Brown and Obama a large reason for our presence in Afghanistan is to stop terrorists like this. However it has come at a terrible price this year. 310 Americans and 104 British troops have lots their lives battling the Taliban and al Qaeda this year alone. Their sacrifice was unable to provide a democratic election with widespread rumours of fraud in President Hamid Karzai’s win which eventually were declared after Dr Abdulla Abdulla withdrew. Apparently there is light at the end of the Afghan tunnel with President Obama hoping the latest troop surge from both sides of the Atlantic will see soldiers returning home as soon as 2011.
Iran also struggled to hold elections this year with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparent election victory triggering protests in Tehran in which several people were killed. In December Ayatollah Montazeri died casting doubt over the reform movement in this strictly Muslim country.
One conflict did end with the British handing over power in Basra in June and the Americans withdrawing from Iraq in September.
The world was however nearly brought to its knees by the H1N1 Swine Flu virus. Cases started in Mexico during March and spread rapidly across the world. Although the feared global pandemic has not yet come to fruition people still hold reservations it may make a return in 2010.
There were also attempts to curb larger global problems. The G20 in London, marred by violence from protesters and heavy handed conduct by police led the way to the Copenhagen Climate Conference, and also global solutions to the economic crisis. Unfortunately for environmental activists the infamous Climategate e-mails dominated the news in the run up to Copenhagen with revelations of results tampering and selective publishing.
The summit, marred by protesters, police and poor organisation, may not have led to the deal which many campaigners wanted, but may have set the ground work for legally binding deals including financing for developing nations to develop green energy.
Available funds have been an issue now for nearly two years with both businesses and governments alike struggling to find liquid capital. Brown, Cameron and Clegg, along with every other party leader across the world have clashed over the issue of public spending cuts to cure the £820bn deficit. The right argues for rapid deficit reduction while the left believes it should be a more gradual process. Both claim theirs will avoid the dreaded double dip.
Bankers dominated the news with repeated calls for government bailouts and with the full extent of their involvement in the global economic collapse becoming clear. Sir Fred Goodwin, the head of Royal Bank of Scotland at the start of the crisis, retired with a £16million pension pot while unemployment rates rocketed to nearly 2.5million. As Christmas approached the some banks announced they were going to pay bonuses this year despite their taxpayer owned status.
Other countries have made progress with their problems.
In May Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was found dead after bloody fighting in North Eastern Sri Lanka effectively ending 26 years of civil conflict.
Nigeria also saw tentative steps towards peace with the surrender of militant leaders in May. It is hoped this may release valuable oil in the Delta region and encourage tourism in what many see as a failed state.
In other parts of Africa the problems keep mounting. Somali pirates have been a constant challenge regularly hijacking ship off their cost and holding the vessel and crew ransom. They are still holding a British couple snatched from their yacht in October.
Globally the biggest story of the year was the sudden death of the King of Pop Michael Jackson. The often controversial icon passed away in June.
More recently Tiger Woods drove into the headlines after a car crash led to revelations about extra marital affairs which have left his personal and professional life in the rough.
It has been a year of surprises and disappointments, the end of the first decade of the new millennium.
So what will dominate 2010?
Read the New Years instalment to find out.
Colin Rowe
