Why we want honesty from Boris Johnson and all politicians in 2022 if trust to be restored – GP Taylor

Yet, even with the threat of the pandemic and the continuing self-imposed isolation, it is with much trepidation that I look to what is to come as the clock strikes for the start of 2022.

Before the pandemic struck, I read in December 2019 a small article in a Hong Kong newspaper that mentioned a new virus in China.

It sent a shock through me as 
if I knew inside this was not 
good news. So much so that I bought face masks and stocked up on essentials two months before the first case was diagnosed in the UK. Soon the pandemic arrived.

Again, I have the same sense of foreboding for 2022 and how I hope I am so wrong and that the feeling I have is, like Ebenezer Scrooge, the undigested cheese I have had for my supper.

I sense that next year will be a time of conflict both nationally and internationally. The President of the USA is a threat to world security.

By that, I mean he is intent on prodding the Russian bear with his stick of threats and expansion. Joe Biden wants to make an impression, he wants to be seen as the tough guy. That is a very dangerous game to play with a man like Vladimir Putin.

Unlike Biden, Vladimir Putin is a real strong character who will not back down or lose face. He feels that Russia is being squeezed and squeezed by the expansionist policy of the West into former Soviet states.

Putin also believes that he has a right to invade the Ukraine, just as Britain believed it had the same right to invade Afghanistan.

What I would like to see in 2022 is common sense and peaceful actions coming to the fore. Politicians must understand that the public do not want to be involved in any more foreign wars. International relations are the most important thing for world peace. America has to stop seeing Russia as a threat and try to build bridges of tolerance and understanding.

Hopefully, war in 2022 will just be a figment of my imagination, as we in Britain have enough to worry about without building a fall-out shelter in the cellar.

Nationally, I would like to see a time when politicians on both sides stopped bickering at each other and come together for the common good. Can they not see that, in Parliament, there are great women and men in both parties who could bring their skills and abilities to run the country in a political unity?

Why can’t the Government bring in members of the opposition to work jointly at this time of national crisis? Now is not the time for both sides to be playing party politics. MPs should be qualified by their experience and ability not just by having gone to Eaton school.

Honesty has to be the go-to word for 2022. All those who seek high office should hold that at the forefront of their minds. It is never wrong to be able to admit when we have done wrong. That is entirely human. To hear an apology instead of an attempt to cover up coming from the mouth of a politician would be so refreshing and also honourable.

Perhaps, that would be asking too much for them to break a habit of a lifetime, but with an uncertain year ahead it is much needed.

If honesty is the word for 2022, then caring must be its companion. I see so many people on the fringes of society who are overlooked. There is a pandemic of loneliness that has been made worse by Covid. This goes hand in hand with the issue of mental ill health.

As a society, we have to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking of others. We can start with the people on our street and find out if any may need our help or just a conversation when we see them.

It is amazing how many people speak to no one else in a day and I know what that can feel like. The Covid pandemic has changed our society and 2022 is the year when we should all start to do something about reclaiming the ground we have lost.

It is not the time for us all to 
go woke and be too frightened to say what is on our minds. It is a time to be open with each other and communicate more, not just with those around us but with the communities in which we live.

Covid has driven us into our burrows. Now is the time to emerge from them into the New Year with all the possibilities that may bring.

It is a time to make the county where we live a better, friendly, vibrant, creative and loving place. After all, this is Yorkshire. God’s own country.

GP Taylor is a writer and broadcaster. He lives in East Yorkshire.

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