As I Please: Year in Review

By: Chris McLaughlin

Tribune Editor-at-large Chris McLaughlin takes stock of 2018 and looks to the challenges of the year ahead.

On 4 December 2018, Theresa May’s government became the first in British history to be found in contempt of parliament after refusing to release its full legal advice on Brexit. (Photo by Christopher Furlong / Getty Images.)

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It was a vintage year for fake news. In 2018 we were told that austerity was coming to an end, and those who had made all of the sacrifices would now reap its rewards — It wasn’t, and they won’t.

The economic skew ensured that the rich got even richer while the number of people living below the official poverty line passed 14 million. A report by Philip Alston, the United Nations rapporteur on extreme poverty, described the government’s approach as ‘punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous’ and the rising levels of child poverty as ‘not just a disgrace but a national calamity and a national economic disaster’.

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It was a vintage year for fake news. In 2018 we were told that austerity was coming to an end, and those who had made all of the sacrifices would now reap its rewards — It wasn’t, and they won’t.

The economic skew ensured that the rich got even richer while the number of people living below the official poverty line passed 14 million. A report by Philip Alston, the United Nations rapporteur on extreme poverty, described the government’s approach as ‘punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous’ and the rising levels of child poverty as ‘not just a disgrace but a national calamity and a national economic disaster’.

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It was a vintage year for fake news. In 2018 we were told that austerity was coming to an end, and those who had made all of the sacrifices would now reap its rewards — It wasn’t, and they won’t.

The economic skew ensured that the rich got even richer while the number of people living below the official poverty line passed 14 million. A report by Philip Alston, the United Nations rapporteur on extreme poverty, described the government’s approach as ‘punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous’ and the rising levels of child poverty as ‘not just a disgrace but a national calamity and a national economic disaster’.

It was a vintage year for fake news. In 2018 we were told that austerity was coming to an end, and those who had made all of the sacrifices would now reap its rewards — It wasn’t, and they won’t.

The economic skew ensured that the rich got even richer while the number of people living below the official poverty line passed 14 million. A report by Philip Alston, the United Nations rapporteur on extreme poverty, described the government’s approach as ‘punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous’ and the rising levels of child poverty as ‘not just a disgrace but a national calamity and a national economic disaster’.

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