I THINK it’s fair to say that we’re all very worried about what’s going to happen in 2025 — but it’s not the time to be downcast. As Trump’s inauguration looms on the horizon my new year message is simply this: Stand firm! 
 
THE OPTIMIST
 
Another New Year is upon us
As the news goes from awful to worse 
And Reform is the billionaires’ plaything 
Though it isn’t Reform, it’s Reverse
As I watch the sea lap at our village 
While they tell me I’m spreading fake news
And the internet swallows their poison 
I refuse to succumb to the blues.
 
For a lifetime my work’s been my hobby
And I’m happier than I’ve ever been 
But it’s not about me here, it’s history 
It’s the changes this old poet’s seen 
The reason the right wing attack us 
Is because of the battles we’ve won 
For what they call ‘woke’ is now normal:
Let’s ensure it does not come undone.
 
I remember when ape chants at football
Were ‘just something that some people did’ 
Disability as playground insult 
Was the norm as a primary school kid 
And my granny’s loud, casual racism 
Hand in hand with the tabloid she read
Went unchallenged in pub and in pulpit —
Now those dinosaurs mostly are dead.
 
Force of nature still, at sixty-seven 
As I summon the memories here 
I know this year’s not going to be heaven 
I’m afraid that’s already quite clear 
I am ready for all that it brings us 
And I’ve welcomed it in at the bar 
So don’t cower as it comes round the corner 
Stand up with me and say: here we are!
 
But it certainly is going to be a challenge, and it’s started with spineless Facebook boss Mark Zuckerburg’s abject capitulation to Trump. 
 
My Facebook feed is already swamped by grotesque screeds of suppurating AI generated reactionary fake nostalgia garbage so completely lobotomised that anyone who takes it seriously must be an actual lemming.
 
Zuckerberg’s announcement that from now on the fact-checkers are being removed from the US platform and lies, fabrications and offensive posts about gender and immigration will be allowed through is not only contemptible in itself — it sets the incoming US administration against EU and UK lawmakers determined to keep them off screen. 
 
It is essential that the UK government stands together with the rest of Europe in opposing Trump’s fascist bullying. Threatening to annex Greenland and turn Canada into the 51st State may seem like something out of a very dark Monty Python script, but we have no idea whether this lunatic actually means it and must be prepared. We need a clear united front against a US fascist threat — that’s how we defeated the last one. Everyone opposed to Trump in the same camp. Simple as that. 
 
How the hell has it come to this? Why have we learned nothing? As Hollywood burns and the sea laps at the harbour wall at the bottom of our road, the next leader of the most powerful nation on Earth laughs at climate change and threatens war. I could weep. 
 
But instead I’ll welcome Graham Potter back into football — it’s going to be very interesting seeing how he does at West Ham — and let you know that I am back firing on all cylinders after my recent circumcision. Once again I am full of love and admiration for the NHS: the care I received from the wonderful staff, and, above all, obviously, the skill of the surgeon. 
 
I was absolutely dreading it, but in the end, it was no skin off my nose. 
 
Gigs start again in two weeks. 

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