Kevin McKenna: The good, the bad and the extremely ugly of 2017

Certainly, if you are one of those affluent few who wield a grossly disproportionate measure of influence on our affairs then yes, it’s true: nothing particularly memorable happened in 2017. Your properties, swollen pension pots and offshore tax arrangements have remained intact and look like they are safe, for another decade or so anyway. Indeed, thanks to some fiscal legerdemain by the Prime Minister, your properties are worth a little more and your tax liabilities became a little less onerous.

For the rest of us, though, 2017 was indeed a big year. And while much of what unfolded was troubling and carried presentiments of mischief, nonetheless there were some encouraging signs that some of the more complacent and acquiescent amongst us might be about to rise from our slumbers.

Here are some of 2017’s highlights, both good and bad. This is in no way a definitive list or even an exhaustive one; I’ll leave that to the features editors of other titles who, at this time of the year, face their stiffest task: to make their newspaper look busy and relevant when all everyone else is seeking to do is to get howling with the bevvy and to work as few hours as possible.

BREXIT

THE Prime Minister insisted last week that the first phase of Brexit had been concluded successfully and with the government’s agenda still intact. We’ll leave aside the obvious deficiencies in such a ridiculous statement: like single-handedly taking Ulster to the brink of civil war; caving in on the divorce settlement and trying to pretend that an impact assessment hasn’t been undertaken.

You can add to that the depression that comes with knowing the rest of the world is now aware of Britain’s dirty little secret: that in our Brexit negotiating team we possess some of the most incompetent, venal and deficient characters in modern politics.

Now all that faces us is securing some kind of second-rate trade deal with the 27 remaining EU states that must rely heavily on them possessing a substantial generosity of spirit. This will be required for them to overlook having their intelligence insulted by having to deal with the likes of David Davis, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox.

Oh yes, and securing trade deals with about 250 non-EU countries that will be armed with the knowledge Great Britain plc is on its hands and knees and in a state of febrile desperation.

DONALD TRUMP

2017 is the year that America lost any respect it ever had. In footballing parlance the US is like a European Champions League winner that has tumbled to the status of playing in an amateur Sunday league. All of it is down to Donald Trump, the only man in the world capable of making North Korea’s Kim Jong-un look like a surefooted world statesman.

It will take many years for the office of US President to recover from the damage that Trump and his gangster administration have wrought. What has been most depressing about Trump’s first year in office, though, hasn’t been the adolescent insults and the revelations of collusion with the Russians. It’s been the fact that Trump’s misdemeanours have been so many that lately we have overlooked the most egregious: that the White House is occupied by a man who has been accused by many different women – all of them unconnected – of sexually assaulting them.

The President of the United States in his own words is cheerfully proud of grabbing women’s genitalia and thinks they are asking for it. Millions of Americans elected him president while knowing all of this.

THE TRIUMPH OF WOMEN

THE siren voices of many in the right-wing press have been squealing in outrage at the fall-out from the wave of sexual abuse scandals. They feel it’s gone too far and that women now have too much power. Effectively, they are saying it’s a woman’s world now and they’re not in the slightest bit happy at this. I very much doubt that it will ever be a woman’s world simply because of this: power and influence isn’t merely wielded by a tiny few in this world, but this tiny few are all male and white at that. If more women had attained positions of influence it’s doubtful that so many millions of people would have lost their lives in wars or that the Royal Bank of Scotland and others would have embarked on their crazy acquisition spree. Women have been treated unequally and as second-class citizens for centuries. If it is indeed to be a woman’s world from now on then it’s long overdue.

JEREMY CORBYN

WE witnessed the forces of UK power and privilege unite as never before to oppose Scottish independence and we saw them do so again as they attempted to destroy Jeremy Corbyn. This was never personal. It was what Corbyn represented that scared them half to death.

After decades of false Labour leaders who all became inevitably compromised by the vested interests they pretended to oppose, here was a real threat: a Labour leader fortified by 34 years of implacable opposition to unearned privilege who was now on the cusp of being able to implement his beliefs.

In 2017 the frenzy of anti-Corbyn hysteria that was whipped up across the country began to crumble as a younger generation, deprived of hope and cheated out of their inheritance by unfettered capitalism, finally rose to reject them.

SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE

MORE than three years after the 2014 referendum on independence, the forces of the British Union that massed to oppose self-determination thought it had been put to bed.

They were given succour in this delusion by a laughable Tory revival in Scotland that soon petered out to a soundtrack of flutes and fiddles played by the party’s assorted grotesques and backwoodsmen now gathered at Westminster.

The two most recent and reliable polls conducted in Scotland have put support for independence at 47 per cent and above. Four years ago it was at 28 per cent. The 47 per cent figure shows that the cause of self-determination is alive and still kicking.

And that is before we begin counting the cost of Brexit in jobs, investment and growth. And in the erosion of human rights that will inevitably follow.