January
The mask mandate was removed, pleasing those who thought wearing a rectangle of cloth on their face to prevent infection was fascism. Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border, which really was fascism.
February
Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, opening the first major European war in three generations.
We learnt that Ukraine was unlikely to collapse from a video of a man disposing of a Russian landmine with a cigarette still hanging from his mouth.
Zelensky Bucha GettyImages-1239741353
Ukraine's President Zelensky in the recently liberated town of Bucha (Getty Images)
Ukraine rallied behind Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comic actor of Jewish descent, who also has voiced Paddington Bear.
A Russian missile missed its designated target, a TV tower, and hit the Holocaust memorial at Babyn Yar.
March
Russian forces massacred civilians at Bucha and continued removing Ukrainian children to Russia. British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe returned home after a six-year detention.
April
Emmanuel Macron was re-elected president of France, beating Marine Le Pen of the National Rally party (formerly the National Front) by 58.5 to 41.5 per cent.
Emmanuel Macron GettyImages-1230045580
Emmanuel Macron (Getty Images)
Boris Johnson visited Zelensky in Kyiv and was given a pottery chicken. The UK government proposed sending asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing.
May
A gunman killed 19 children at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. It was America’s third-deadliest school shooting after Virginia Tech (2007) and Sandy Hook (2012).
In the UK local elections, the Conservative Party lost 336 seats. The Liberal Democrats gained 194 seats, the Greens 63, and Labour 22 seats.
Neil Parish, MP for Tiverton and Honiton, a Devon constituency that looks like the illustration on a butter pat, watched pornography in the House of Commons. He defended himself by saying he was Googling a tractor called “the dominator” but resigned anyway.
June
Britain celebrated Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee. Typhoon jets spelled out “70” in the sky. In the United States, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, making abortion illegal in 13 states. The Liberal Democrats won the Tiverton and Honiton by-election with a 29.9 per cent swing.
July
After 57 members of his government resigned, Boris Johnson accepted that, like King Canute, he could not hold back the tide. He quoted Terminator 2 from the Dispatch Box in the House of Commons: “Hasta La Vista, baby”.
Boris resigns GettyImages-1242976837
Boris Johnson making his resignation speech in Downing Street (Getty Images)
The former Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt was likely to succeed Johnson, until newspapers favourable to him endorsed Liz Truss, who had remained loyal. She and Rishi Sunak were sent forward for election by the Tory membership. Britain recorded its hottest day since records began on 19 July: 40.3 degrees centigrade at Coningsby, Lincolnshire.
August
Sunak and Truss took part in Tory members’ hustings. Truss said, “the jury is out” on Emmanuel Macron, though France is a stalwart ally, and her South West Norfolk constituents are perhaps the people least able to successfully invade France, except in their heads. Sunak, a near-billionaire by marriage, lamented in Tunbridge Wells that Labour took money for deprived urban areas which could have gone to Tunbridge Wells.
The novelist Sir Salman Rushdie, subject of a fatwa since the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988, was stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, New York state. He lost the sight in one eye and the use of one hand. Inflation in the UK reached 10.1 per cent.
An article in the journal Nature Climate Change suggested that scientists commit acts of civil disobedience to highlight the threat of a climate crisis. In France, Eyal Haddad, a Jewish man, was murdered by his Muslim neighbour, who had previously set fire to an Israeli flag and filmed it. The authorities said the killing was not antisemitic.
September
Elizabeth Truss became Britain’s third female Conservative prime minister. (The Labour Party has yet to elect a female leader.) Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle. Jews marvelled that a woman in public life for almost a century is on record as being rude in public only once, to the actor Mariam Margolyes.
Truss new cabinet GettyImages-1243008122
Liz Truss with her new cabinet (Getty Images)
The Queue to see her body stretched for several miles along the south bank of the River Thames. People were hospitalised from The Queue, but no deaths were recorded. The new king, Charles III, had a fight with a pen when signing the visitors’ book at Hillsborough Castle.
Queen coffin Queue GettyImages-1243297401
Thousands queued to pay their respects to the Queen
His coronation was slated for May 2023. Because it is a Saturday, he invited the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis for a sleepover the night before.
In Iran Mahsa Amini, 22, was beaten by the “morality police” for wearing an improper hijab, and later died. This triggered countrywide protests against the regime.
The novelist Hilary Mantel, a woman of infinite gifts and incalculable kindness, died at 70, leaving 12 novels, two collections of short stories and a memoir, Giving up the Ghost.
hilary mantelGettyImages-491833455
Hilary Mantel (Getty Images)
“There are no endings,” she wrote in Bring Up The Bodies. “If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings.”
October
As if in tribute to Elizabeth II, the nation rejected her namesake after a disastrous mini budget allowed Labour to pull up to 39 points ahead, much to its own surprise. Rishi Sunak was crowned after Boris Johnson’s flight home from the Caribbean — Hola de Nuevo, baby? — failed to drum up the numbers he needed to return to Downing Street.
Giorgia Meloni of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia became Italy’s first female prime minister. Xi Jinping took a third term as China’s president. In Brazil, far-right Jair Bolsonaro was unseated by leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In America, the musician Kanye West (“Ye”) tweeted that he was “going death con 3 (sic) on Jewish people.”
November
In the USA midterms, the Republican “Red Wave” failed to materialise. Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives but kept control of the Senate. Back in Britain, Sir Gavin Williamson resigned from the cabinet after being accused of telling a civil servant to slit his throat. It was his third resignation from the cabinet.
December
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex accused the Royal Family of institutional racism on Netflix. The King went to the JW3 community centre on the Finchley Road to dance the hora with Holocaust survivors.
Public-service workers went on strike. Tip to readers: if you convince train staff you support their action, they may let you sit in first-class for free, from which you can abuse genuine first-class ticket holders for not supporting the strikes, and from their own seats. I recommend this heartily.
Qatar, a tyranny, hosted the World Cup finals, hoping to normalise tyranny through the world’s shared love of “kicky ball”.
Emiliano Martinez GettyImages-1245713949
Argentina's goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez making his crude gesture (Getty Images)
Many of the world’s worst people attended in person to watch Argentina beat France. The Argentine goalkeeper, a massive child with massive hands, performed a pantomime in front of Qatar’s Emir by pretending his glove was a penis. It was better than Kylian Mbappé’s second goal of normal time.
Jeremy Corbyn said Happy Chanukah to all Jews, because he still doesn’t understand that Chanukah is the festival of Jewish national self-determination, which is quite ironic. A congressional panel accused Donald Trump of conspiracy and urged his prosecution for inciting the Capitol riots of January 2021, which is less ironic than genuinely funny. Me, I’d hang him from a gibbet outside the Capitol. What else is the death penalty for?
