Well, that depends who you are, where, your circumstances and your politics. We can all think of the teeming millions for whom it was not a good year at all. This Blog will concentrate on the U.K.
The coalition government was a good thing. It has been strong and effective, though recently the Telegraph scam has shown natural tensions about which most of us knew little. It is decisive on the economy and its monetarism is probably a better choice than the alternative promoted by disciples of J. M. Keynes. Some of the cuts have been insensitive or unfair or both, but cuts there have to be. The reforms are more questionable. Some are fussy and medling without clear benefits beyond ideological purity. Education is a very mixed bag here. The NHS, the most controversial, is the best. Putting GPs in charge makes very good operational sense. We must hope they are given authority to deliver and not given some prescriptive process which screws up. Welfare reform sounds a good idea, but it is far from clear whether the new ideas are good.
On the wider front of whether the State itself is working as it should, the impressions are universally bad. It is too complex and procedure driven to be able to function in the out of the ordinary as the bad weather has shown. It is effective at getting in the way of almost everybody’s lives but good at removing obstacles from the path of almost no one. It has organised over the years dysfunctional regulation of the City, the banks, the public utilities, the communications system and the transport network, all of which overcharge and under perform. It will require much more than the woolly concept of the Big Society to put it right.
The economy is by no means out of the woods. There remains no certainty that there is a way out. We, are, however probably on the best path. The balances between spend and cut, inflation and interest rates, quantitative easing and currency devaluation, saving and borrowing, housing costs and incomes all remain out of harmony. It may be that 2011 will be the year when recovery is secured, but equally it may be not so. Anything can and indeed may happen.
As for our Foreign Policy, there have been some positive signs of a move to a more independent line, but so far too timid to have real impact. Afghanistan is an unwinnable war as everybody now knows and most are beginning to admit. It may also be a lost cause.
So, the report on 2010 is mixed, the prediction for 2011 is uncertain.
A Happy New Year to all our readers.