The prospect of a new year, though essentially nothing more than a calendric method of order, is imbued with a surfeit of emotional hope and resolution. In this increasingly secular celebration of the new gods of consumerism the period of greetings, good tidings, gluttony, family joy (or not) and lonely misery that we call Christmas there is a break in the march of time from where we can view Christmas past and future.
This time two years ago, Tribune lamented that world leaders had flunked the chance to deliver perhaps the biggest hope for future generations when they met in Bali for the climate change conference. Climate change, we said, had become a political Groundhog Day, with successive ministers issuing copycat rhetoric followed by copycat compromise. Plus ça change. Copenhagen did not achieve nothing, but it achieved nothing like enough.
Christmas future will, in Britain, be defined by an election which could be the make-or-break of the Labour Party, whose members’ collective wish for Christmas must be another couple of opinion polls showing a narrowing of the Tory lead, giving rise to portentous mutterings about the possibility, even the desirability, of a Lib-Lab pact to keep the Tory devil at bay.
We have seen pointers to what a Tory future would bring, not least in the arrogance with which BA’s Willie Walsh, in the style of Margaret Thatcher and the miners, has picked the time and the fight in an aviation race to the bottom, with a two-year pay freeze, reduced numbers of staff on long haul flights, new employees recruited on worse pay and conditions and a phasing out for all practical purposes of any rightful claim that BA is “the world’s favourite airline”. The prospect of cancellations and disappointments for up to a million BA passengers is a Christmas present from Mr Walsh, not the cabin crew members who are fighting to maintain standards and safety on behalf of those travellers.
The race to the bottom is evident too where the Tories in power at a local level provide a glimpse of the future under a Tory government. Tory-controlled Barnet council in north London wants to remodel itself as “easyCouncil” after the no frills budget airline. The High Court has had to halt a plan to remove 24-hour live-in wardens from sheltered housing on the grounds that the council failed to take into account its duties under the Disability Discrimination Act and the effect on disabled tenants. Just one example of Tory callousness from Leeds to Brighton; in Hammersmith and Fulham, dubbed “Cameron’s favourite council”, where 500 new charges targeted at the vulnerable, elderly and poor have been introduced, the Tories view homelessness as a law and order issue rather than a compassionate need. We can see what the future may hold.
Last year the future for Tribune was hopeful but not certain. Now it is both. Since last Christmas we have successfully completed the change of ownership and instigated improvements on which we will continue to build. We offer a heartfelt thanks to all our readers and supporters and wish them all a happy festive season. Make the best of it.
