It was quite a year!

Take your mind back 12 months. Packed crowds watch fireworks in Central London as Jools Holland and Craig David get us dancing into the New Year.

In politics, it’s a grim time for left-wingers. The Conservatives have won a huge majority and the hopes for both the Corbyn and the Remain projects have been completely dashed.

Brexit’s getting done and Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings have the power to reshape Britain. In what way? We didn’t really know, and still don’t, as their manifesto was wafer thin. But surely 2020 can’t be any worse than 2019?

January

With coronavirus still just ‘a cluster of pneumonia cases in an obscure Chinese city’, the first big story of the year was the US assassination of Iranian general Qassim Soleimani, which sparked fears of world war three. Both sides later cooled off as first Iran and then the US was hit hard by this scary new disease.

Closer to home, Dominic Cummings posted THAT job advertisement while advising his government to keep dodging press scrutiny as they did during the election. Remember Johnson hiding in the fridge? And taking that reporter’s phone? That was the energy Cummings wanted to bring into government.

At right wing blog Guido Fawkes, the year started badly as they had to apologise after using Wikipedia to try to smear leadership contender Rebecca Long-Bailey and then referred to Nazi-saluting fascists simply as ‘Italian football fans’ in an article attacking a Jewish MP.

The fall-out from the election continued. We spoke to the woman behind a huge grassroots voter registration drive. Her group handed out 15,000 flyers to young voters around London but said they could do much more with more resources and support.

February

Dominic Cummings malevolent presence spread. One of the ‘weirdos and misfits’ he hired was revealed to have previously supported compulsory contraception to avoid the creation of a “permanent underclass”. Boris Johnson’s spokesperson refused to condemn eugenics. 

And after Cummings fell out with Sajid Javid’s spin doctor, the Chancellor was forced to chose between his staff and his position. Faced with this humiliating choice, Javid resigned. This was despite Johnson’s election pledge to keep Javid in Number 11. A relatively-unknown MP called Rishi Sunak was his replacement.

Also in February, rumours circulated that the government was about to scrap the Department for International Development. I warned that doing so would risk a re-run of the Pergau Dam scandal of 1993 where taxpayers’ money was dished out to protect corporate interests. The government confirmed DFID would be scrapped in June and cut the aid budget later in the year. Scandals are sure to follow.

In a prophetic piece, Unite warned that roads in Kent could become a giant parking lot and drivers would go without toilets and refreshments. They predicted this would follow Brexit but in the end we didn’t have to wait that long.

The Marmot review into health inequality found ten years of Tory rule has had a “shocking” impact on the health of the poorest. Coronavirus has made these class and racial inequalties more tragically relevant than ever. The wealthy and healthy are much more likely to survive the disease.

And it was an eventful month for Home Secretary Priti Patel. In one flight, she deported dozens of people to Jamaica – a country some of them barely knew. The last time the Home Office did this five of the people were murdered. That didn’t stop her and the deportations show no sign of stopping. 

On the 29th, her Permanent Secretary Philip Rutnam quit, accusing her of a “vicious and orchestrated campaign” against him and suing for constructive dismissal. Not for the last time, Patel was under pressure to resign herself until coronavirus knocked the scandal out of the headlines for another few months.

March

March was the month when covid-19 really hit the headlines, especially after the Prime Minister himself caught it. The disease highlighted existing flaws in our society. Things like our lack of proper universal sick pay, a shortage of public toilets and a broken social security safety net have always been wrong but now they became threats to national security.

As the lockdown began (too late), the new Chancellor (under pressure from trade unions) announced the furlough scheme. While this helped a lot of people, it left out the self-employed. Our columnist Prem Sikka was one of the first to draw attention to this long running flaw. The furlough scheme was also not generous enough to support the low-paid. For those struggling to survive on 100% of poverty wages, 80% of poverty wages definitely not enough.

With the nation distracted by the pandemic, the Labour leadership race dragged on. Contender (and later Shadow Foreign Secretary) Lisa Nandy spoke to us and our readers. She made the case for military interventions like in Kosovo and Sierra Leone and said she supported proportional representation. Will Keir Starmer make that Labour policy?

April

As the infections from March (remember Cheltenham, Anfield etc?) filtered through to hospitals and morgues, April was the peak of the pandemic. There were 2,000 care home deaths in just one week as hospital patients were moved into homes without being tested for the virus and ‘do not resuscitate’ notices were dished out on mass. 

At the same time, care home and hospital staff had to treat protective gear like gold dust and many themselves contracted the virus. The clapping for carers was a welcome morale boost but the very least they deserve. Will 2021 be the year they get their just rewards?

At one of the televised press conferences, our Josiah Mortimer asked Business Secretary Alok Sharma if it was a mistake to call carers “low-skilled”. He didn’t get an answer.

With the nation in crisis, the Right had some strange priorities. One DUP MP fretted that the lockdown may stop him voting against abortion reform and the secretively-funded ‘Taxpayers Alliance’ decided now was the time to lay into Public Health England. The agency was eventually scrapped in August, much to the anger of public health experts.

All this meant barely anyone noticed Keir Starmer easily winning the Labour leadership. He appointed Lisa Nandy and the low profile Nick Thomas Symonds and Anneliese Dodds to his top jobs. Despite their best efforts, they’re still barely known. Will that change this year?

Oh, and despite being at the peak of a pandemic, Gavin Williamson was pushing to re-open schools. Sound familiar?

May

In May, we were told to stop ‘staying home’ and instead to ‘stay alert’. The government’s scientific advisers weren’t impressed with the new messaging. One expert in health psychology said: “I think we can safely say that the government is not following the science on this messaging. Unless their goal is to light the blue touch paper on the second wave.”

In the words of one Tory donor, the UK government was becoming a “laughing stock” and they started to dip in the polls, as the ‘rally round the flag’ effect gradually wore off.

This gradual erosion in support sped up rapidly after the Mirror and Guardian revealed Dominic Cummings had driven across the country with coronavirus. “So many of us have sacrificed being with loved ones. So what makes Dominic Cummings so special?” asked our own Emma Burnell, catching the public mood.

Characteristically, Johnson refused to sack his adviser and he’d hang on for a few months more. The scandal led to the biggest drop in government support since the 1979 winter of discontent and many members of the public deciding not to bother with self-isolation.

June

Just when we thought nothing could knock the pandemic off the top of the news agenda, there came the killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis. The ensuing global outrage grew into a long overdue conversation about how black people are disadvantaged in all areas of life all across the world.

Here in the UK, the case of Belly Mujinga was taken up by campaigners. She was a train station worker who died after a man spat at her. The man faced no criminal charges. There were also calls for more black judges and for the ‘white-washed’ national curriculum to be changed. Despite enjoying public support, this latter demand was callously dismissed by the government.

In fact, the government’s only real reaction to the movement was to delay a report into racial inequalities in covid deaths, for fear that publication could spark a backlash against them. Johnson also chose this time to suggest the UK should switch its overseas aid from Africa to Eastern Europe. 

Elsewhere, Housing minister Robert Jenrick helped media and property mogul Richard Desmond avoid a tax bill. He ignored calls to resign and Johnson stood by him. Business minister Nadhim Zahawi said it wasn’t just the super-rich who could influence ministers, the public could too if they bought tickets to Tory fundraising dos. Saying the quiet bit out loud Nadhim?

July

On 4th July, lockdown restrictions eased in England and, with encouragement from the government, many headed straight for the pubs. The Green party’s Jenny Jones argued this easing was too early. Knowing what we now know, it’s hard to disagree.

With the worst of the crisis seemingly over though, the news was dominated by questions over why contracts had been handed to inexperienced and/or well-connected firms. The Russia report revealed the influence Putin’s cronies have over the Tory party and a report into the ‘towns fund’ scandal suggested taxpayers’ money had been spent on promoting the Conservatives’ electoral interests.

In better news, ‘Tommy Robinston’ announced he was using his rights as an EU citizen to migrate to Spain during the transition period. Let’s hope the authorities there treat him with all the decency he’s shown migrants over the years.

The Conservatives’ problems north of the border continued. Boris Johnson’s ‘love-bombing’ trip to Orkney was a failure and the Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw was forced out by his Westminster. Support for independence continued to grow throughout the year.

August

The cronyism scandals continued in August as the government made Lords of Russian media mogul Evgeny Lebedev, Boris’s brother Jo Johnson, some Tory donors and several Labour MPs who criticised Jeremy Corbyn. These appointments were ridiculed around the world.

As the Green Party held leadership elections, we revealed that the party’s chair Liz Reason had been secretly suspended from the party by its disciplinary committee and then re-instated by her own executive body. Critics called it a “coup” but she was allowed to stand and was later re-elected.

‘Eat out to Help Out’ was initially popular but now looks a hideous misjudgement. The exam results scandal hit the government’s poll ratings. And the sun (remember that?) shone very bright for a very long time. These record-breaking summers are getting more and more common but the right-wing press still wouldn’t mention climate change. They focussed more on the all important ‘women in bikinis’ angle.

September

In September, coronavirus cases started to surge but schools re-opened anyway, a postcode lottery left some facing six-hour round trips for a covid test and an unlikely alliance of greens, farmers and supermarkets fought the government’s agriculture bill.

October

As scientists raised the alarm about rising coronavirus cases, the Daily Mail called on the government to “defy the boffins” and the Sun urged him not to “surrender” to them. Sadly, Johnson listened to them and not Keir Starmer who was calling for a second lockdown. And now we are where we are.

Over half-term, the government rejected Marcus Rashford’s campaign for them to feed hungry kids. Many local councils decided to provide meals anyway though – most of them controlled by the Labour Party.

Elsewhere, we revealed Therese Coffey took expensive and polluting first-class flights to climate summits and reported that arts organisations had been forced to tweet their thanks as a condition of government support.

And we covered the Unison leadership contest, with in-depth interviews with Christina McAnea, Roger Mckenzie and Hugo Pierre. The result will be announced on January 11.

November

Early November’s news was dominated by the EHRC’s report into anti-semitism in the Labour Party. Sadly, the debate moved quickly away from the report’s eminently sensible and widely accepted recommendations and onto Jeremy Corbyn as an individual and his suspension from the party.

And all eyes moved from Westminster to Washington as the US election results were counted…and counted…and counted. Dominic Raab refused to condemn Trump’s false voter fraud claims, just as his predecessor Jeremy Hunt refused to stand up for Sadiq Khan when Trump called him a short “stone cold loser”. Incidentally, Khan is almost certain to be re-elected in May while Trump spends more time with his Twitter account.

A few weeks later, the Priti Patel bullying scandal re-surfaced after Sir Alex Allan found she broke the ministerial code. But in the end it was Allan that resigned while Boris Johnson backed the ‘Prittster’ and ordered his MPs to “form a square” around her. They dutifully did so.

December

It was a December of Deja Vu as coronavirus cases soared and Brexit talks dragged on. This time though, after years of politicking, a deal was signed and voted through by parliament. As the deal was over 1,000 pages long and published on Christmas eve though, barely anyone can honestly say they’ve got their head round it yet. We’ll find out tomorrow and throughout the year how the deals done on paper manifest in reality.

Joe Lo is a co-editor of Left Foot Forward

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