It’s almost time to say goodbye to 2025. What will you miss most? Anything?
To put it mildly, it’s been a year of disruption and conflict from Sudan and Venezuela to Cambodia and Thailand, Gaza and Ukraine. Plus, the economic disruption of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and political disruption across Europe and elsewhere.
In the UK, who could have predicted that by the end of 2025 the most popular political party according to opinion polls would be Nigel Farage’s latest political incarnation, Reform UK? Or that King Charles’s brother, formerly Prince Andrew, would be disgraced and stripped of his royal titles as a result of his association with Jeffrey Epstein? He is now called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his royal lodgings have been significantly downgraded, too.
But for many people in England, the strangest events of 2025 were the weird flag protests stirred up by anti-migrant activists on the right and far-right of politics. England flags were painted by vandals on roads, roundabouts and even litter bins. Some hung flags from lampposts. This caused disruption and costs for English local councils in the clean-up efforts, including the city of York where initial costs of vandalism came to £16,378 (almost $22,000) or Medway in Kent where the initial clean-up cost was said to be £11,000. The true cost in labour and cleaning materials will never be known.
What was striking was how un-British too much flag-waving came to seem. We British tend to love our country but very much prefer a quiet, solid patriotism to showy flag-waving and vandalism. But in this very strange year, there was also the revelation that a BBC TV current affairs programme mistakenly edited together two separate bits of a Trump speech. This error became truly extraordinary when Mr Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion and then $5 billion. He eventually filed a lawsuit against the broadcaster on Monday, seeking $10 billion in damages.
There were other very odd 2025 moments, too. The burglary at the Louvre in Paris was a French farce. Thieves used an extendable ladder in daylight to climb in and steal jewellery valued at €88 million ($103 million). Although historically priceless, the jewellery is virtually unsellable except if it is melted down for the gold – a crime of historic proportions.
Then there are the truly astonishing changes in the US since Mr Trump re-entered the White House in January. In October, he suddenly demolished the East Wing and has planned the construction of a ballroom next year. All this came as he redecorated the White House with gold fixtures and engaged in televised cabinet meetings when, at times, he seemed to be asleep.
There was also the unprecedented, and very public, row between Mr Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shown live on television plus the appointment of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, to take a chainsaw to the US government. This was followed by the almost as sudden break-up in the Musk-Trump relationship that may – or may not – have been repaired.
For next year, there is a long list of unfinished business from this year. Gaza is the most obvious example. A ceasefire is in operation, but a lasting peace remains elusive. The Trump-inspired idea of turning the Palestinian enclave into a beach resort does not have any coherent future in the real world, and while other potential conflicts may have quietened down, they have not gone away.
Two of the biggest news stories of this year were the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear programme and the revelation that American plans to bomb the Houthis in Yemen were mistakenly revealed in a Signal group that mistakenly included a very well-known American journalist.
Big questions about Iran and also Yemen therefore remain unanswered. These and other problems unresolved in 2025 mean that in 2026, Mr Trump’s disruptions to personal, diplomatic and trade relationships can be predicted to resume. The US President had characteristically undiplomatic words to say about what he sees as the decline of Europe and – compared to other US presidents – a distinct lack of enthusiasm for Nato.
He also has very difficult relationships with US neighbours Canada and Mexico, and it’s unclear where the build-up of US firepower off Venezuela is heading. Some analysts predict that it will exacerbate concern about US-Cuba relations in the next few months. And so, when media organisations around the world pull together reviews of the highs and lows of the past year, they are spoilt for choice.
Behind all the specific and almost limitless examples mentioned above, the big global picture for next year includes the new rising power dynamics involving China and India, concerns about India and Pakistan’s relationship after the short-lived conflict of 2025, and whether the damage the Ukraine war is doing to Ukraine itself will also lead to even further economic damage to Russia.
Above all, after the profound changes of the Trump shake-up in 2025, will Washington return to a more predictable kind of US presidency? That’s possible, but after the ups and downs of 2025, perhaps “Donald the Disruptor” is only just getting warmed-up.
