2024: What could possibly go right?
CHANGE: This year’s General Election could see Labour’s Keir Starmer become Prime Minister after 14 years of ‘chaotic’ Tory government
The Accidental Diplomat, a column by Paul Knott
This year has got off to a bad start, but there are reasons for hope
It is fair to say that the world has started the new year in bad shape.
The horrific wars in the Middle East and Ukraine could spread further. The focus on those two crises means other terrible conflicts such as the civil war in Sudan are being ignored by outsiders.
Meanwhile, many people are still struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and climate change is causing ever more extreme weather problems.
And looming over everything is the possible return of the deranged Donald Trump as American President.
Understandably, most of the news is devoted to these dangerous situations. But this can make us forget that sometimes things do get better too. This will be as true in 2024 as in any other year.
Happily, Britain is one place where improvement is likely. This year’s general election will give the British people the chance to remove the chaotic Tory government.
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The Tories have been in power since 2010 and have failed on every level, other than in lining their own pockets and those of their friends. Their mismanagement has made the cost-of-living crisis worse than in other similar countries and wrecked public services, such as the NHS. Internationally, they have destroyed Britain’s reputation as a reliable country.
As long as enough people come out to vote, the job of repairing the damage the Tories have done will be given to the Labour party led by Keir Starmer. Whilst they will not be perfect, Starmer’s government will be filled with capable, honest people dedicated to making the country a better place for its citizens. Fixing everything will take them a long time but some improvements should be felt quite quickly.
Beyond national politics, we often overlook the life-changing progress international cooperation regularly achieves, such as in public health.
By working together, governments, international organisations, scientists and private companies have virtually eliminated deadly diseases such as polio. HIV/AIDS has also been turned from a death sentence into a manageable condition. This year, a new malaria vaccine will be released. Malaria kills about 600,000 people every year, three-quarters of whom are children under five years old. Ending this carnage would be an enormous achievement.
With admittedly less certainty, tackling climate change is another global issue on which positive progress could be made in 2024. We often hear about the climate reaching a “tipping point” beyond which it will be impossible to recover. This point is close and an extremely serious matter, including for low-lying coastal cities like Hull threatened by rising sea levels.
But there are grounds for hope as well. Almost all governments now recognise the reality of the climate crisis. They also know what needs to be done about it, such as burning far less coal and oil to produce energy. Most of the technologies needed to tackle the problem are now available too. Hull stands to benefit from this transition as an important location for the growing wind turbine industry.
Now that we have the knowledge and the technology to tackle climate change, the biggest challenge for the world is simply acting quickly enough. Those of us that have the right to vote can play a part by electing governments that will do so.
One crucial global political development that looks possible this year is better relations between the US and China. Many people had feared that the world’s two most powerful countries were sliding towards a conflict that would be a disaster for us all. That risk remains real. Fortunately, the leaderships of both countries seem to have recognised the danger too.
The US and China will continue to be rivals, not friends, but they are now talking to each other more. If this continues, it will reduce the chances of either side doing anything that could cause their fragile relationship to spin out of control.
The background to this improvement is that China’s economy and rise to global power has slowed down, partly due to bad decisions made by its ruling dictatorship. This could be a good thing for the rest of the world.
Recent setbacks and falling investment by foreign companies may be making China’s government realise that it could benefit from behaving less aggressively towards its neighbours.
Whilst nobody wants China’s massive economy to cool down so much that it causes global economic problems, we do need a better trading balance. In this respect, the further success of western governments’ attempts to encourage companies to bring more jobs closer to home and make us less reliant on products made in China would be good news too.
Most years, pundits like me making predictions are made to look foolish by the unforeseen events the world throws up. There will almost certainly be at least one of these in 2024.
In fact, we are long overdue a happy rather than a horrible surprise, along the lines of the Berlin Wall falling way back in 1989. The Iranian people finally succeeding in throwing off the religious extremist regime that oppresses them might be one to watch.
It is often said to be darkest before dawn and I return to the world’s two most prominent crises for possible surprises that seem unlikely in their present grim circumstances.
Ukraine is currently struggling to chase out the vicious Russian invaders due to a lack of weapons. But the outcome of this conflict remains largely in our hands. If Western nations supply Ukraine quickly enough with what it needs to defend itself, it will defeat Russia. That victory would end the threat the evil Putin regime poses to all of us and could even cause its downfall.
It is even harder to see any hope in the sickening conflict currently raging in Gaza. But not totally impossible. One day, enough Israelis and Palestinians will realise that endless cycles of violence are achieving nothing but mutual misery. This will lead them to accept that the compromise of creating two states living side by side is the only way to achieve peace for all of them.
HEROIC DEFENCE: Ukraine can win with enough support. Picture by Evgen Maloletka
Once the current fighting ends, the violent Palestinian terrorists of Hamas will be greatly weakened and the unpopular, extremist Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu will be deposed. The removal of these two major obstructions to peace will create a small opportunity for more moderate people to begin building something better.
Again, I am not saying this will definitely happen. The grief and anger about Hamas’ murderous attack on Israel and the brutal excesses of Israel’s response will be difficult for both sides to overcome. There are many other complicated issues to resolve in this dispute too. But, backed by a large amount of outside pressure and support, steps towards peace are not impossible.
Unless something dramatic happens to prevent him from becoming the Republican candidate at the US Presidential election in November (another surprise I would not completely rule out), the dark cloud hanging over the year is the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House.
Having this dangerously unstable individual in the world’s most powerful job would make every one of the situations I have mentioned in this column worse, and many others besides.
More optimistically, most Americans do not belong to Trump’s cult-like following and they may give him a severe electoral beating instead. And, if that happens, then a whole world of possibilities to make things better opens up.