2020 Challenges

Should anyone be in any doubt that the new decade will be challenging, the Times today provides a helpful primer. No, not the 11 month Brexit negotiation which Ursula  von der Leyen has already dismissed as next to impossible and is now supported by Phil Hogan, the Trade Commissioner who expects the Government to ditch their legislation and beg for an extension to the transition period – expect the BBC to join this bandwagon, fff – but the foreign policy issue of the UK relationship with China and the future of our increasingly individualistic society. James Kirkup makes a compelling case for confronting our ambivalence to China in the shadow of ratcheting rivalry between that country and the USA and poses the question, what will it mean to the West if China can deliver sustainable growth and prosperity to hundreds of millions of people without giving them votes? Equally tellingly, reflecting upon the emergence of our permissive society in the 1960s which has led to multiculturalism, identity politics and victim culture, Melanie Phillips observes that, far from creating harmony, this hyper-individualism has destroyed social cohesion and promoted division. She laments that the young are “not taught how to think but what to think,” and that there has been a retreat from reason. Some challenges for the West, you may agree, which may relegate our future relationship with the EU to something of a side-show?  Meantime, Happy New Year!