Ah, Billy Joel. The pianist who once sang of an unstoppable flame that has been burning “since the world began to turn.” Little did he know that decades later, we would be taking frantic notes on how to deal with the ever-growing fire.
As we tread cautiously toward 2025, the temperature appears to have risen several degrees, and all our attempts to control the fires have failed somewhere between terrible and dismal. If political speculation is to be believed — and it seems frustratingly accurate these days — we may just need the world’s largest fire extinguisher to prevent the coming year from resembling a global torch of sanity, sensitivity and fiscal solvency.
Let’s start across the pond at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where Donald Trump will, incredibly (or inevitably), reinsert himself behind the Resolute Desk on January 20th. The question, as always: Who is more resolute in the face of foreign adversaries, the US Constitution, or the hapless employees caught in its crosshairs? He made it clear that he is back, and he is bigger, bolder and bolder than ever. This is his re-coronation, after all. There’s something perversely admirable about the impudence of a man – like a pantomime villain who insists on returning season after season to enthusiastic boos from the stalls.
Naturally, his supporters are more impressed than ever, chanting forcefully against rigged elections and the construction of new (or perhaps bigger) walls. They never stop singing, “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” because to them Donald is nothing more than a lightning rod. The fires are almost always the fault of someone else – China, Mexico, or the dreaded “mainstream media.” So pass the popcorn. A reboot of Trump: The White House Years in 2025 might just be the box office smash we’re too exhausted to stomach.
Meanwhile, here in Blighty, it’s New Year’s Day, and the weather forecast is bleak – both figuratively and economically. Whispers from the city suggest that Rachel Reeves – the Labor chancellor, or “iron chancellor with rust around the edges”, depending on who you ask – has been busy with her own brand of economic fireworks. We’ve all prayed for a mature economy: fair taxation, sensible spending, and a balanced budget by the end of this century, perhaps? Instead, we got a fiery display of tax rises, missed targets, the near extinction of small businesses in the entire UK farming community, plus a potential brain drain of entrepreneurs and income generators.
If the Treasury’s aim is to turn the UK into a cautionary tale for first-year economics students, it is certainly defeating that aim. Perhaps our only saving grace is that no one can quite remember whether there are any practical alternatives. We didn’t start a fire, but goodness knows it might have been a good idea to keep a bucket of water ready just in case.
As if this were not enough, we are watching British schools turn into veritable sardine cans, filled with new arrivals who, ironically, belong to the private sector. Yes, you heard correctly. Private schools are expected to go bankrupt left, right and center, unable to sustain themselves under punitive new taxes, a cost-of-living crisis that has decimated middle-class incomes, and a wave of regulatory changes that have made top hats and Latin prayers as fashionable as the fax machine.
Thus, half the pupils of the Eton twin group seemed to have arrived at the threshold of the local comprehensive, expecting someone – anyone – to teach them the difference between the subjunctive and the verb, and to do so in a building that was never large enough for its catchment area , not to mention those new little aristocrats.
The pressing question is how the state’s already overstretched system can absorb so many new students. Some say it’s a lesson in humility for previously privileged families. Others describe it as a slow-burning tragedy for the entire education sector. In the grand scheme of our unstoppable hell, he’s just another rung on the burning ladder.
But let’s not forget the story of Nigel Farage, who, like a recurring character in soap operas who you can’t believe is still alive, keeps coming up. He is no longer just the impudent person behind Brexit or a mouthpiece for disgruntled former Tories: oh no, this time, if you believe the rumors swirling in dank Westminster tea rooms, he may be about to become Britain’s next prime minister.
Laugh all you want, but that gibberish might get up your throat when you see the polling data. It turns out that the British people, in times of crisis, have a strange habit of resorting to the craziest option. For those who remember the night of the Brexit vote – arguably the night we collectively set off one of the biggest fireworks in our post-war history – there is a creeping sense that we have seen it before. Are we really about to give Farage the biggest seat of power in the country? The idea alone could trigger a nuclear meltdown so intense it would make Sellafield’s radioactive stockpile look like a scented candle.
And here we are, 2025: a year that already feels like we’re all dancing on the edge of a volcano, while the embers of last year’s fire still glow beneath our feet. “We didn’t start the fire,” some may protest, but look around: between Trump’s second (or perhaps third?) coming, Reeves’ economic miscalculations, children fleeing bankrupt private schools, and the looming threat of a Farage-led government. , we’re staring into a powder box. The fire could be unstoppable, once again. But not completely despair.
Human history has shown us that we are remarkably adaptable creatures. We keep moving forward, stumbling from year to year, sometimes setting ourselves on fire in the process. It’s true that 2025 may be a year of madness, but if there’s one lesson from Billy Joel’s timeless anthem, it’s that the fire has been burning for as long as we can remember, and yet we’re still here.
Of course, we probably need the world’s largest fire extinguisher. Let’s pray we find one before we all turn to ashes of self-inflicted stupidity.
Regardless, as we ring in the new year, we are preparing for the possibility of the fire getting worse. Trump is in the White House, Farage is roaming Downing Street, our schools are creaking under the weight of the rafters, and the economy is shaking like a tea tray during an earthquake.
The question, dear readers: Do we really want to put out the fire? Or, like some pyromaniacs, do we find ourselves unhealthily fascinated by fire? Only time will tell, but for now, it pays to stock up on fire extinguishers. We didn’t start it. But if 2025 is destined to be the biggest fire yet, we’d better figure out how to at least prevent the sparks from damaging our sanity. After all, there is only so long we can tolerate the heat. As Billy Joel might remind us: the world is still changing.
Richard Alvin
Richard Alvin is a serial entrepreneur, former UK Government Small Business Advisor and Honorary Teaching Fellow in Business at Lancaster University. Winner of the London Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year and City of London Entrepreneur of the Year Award for services to business and charity. Richard is also Managing Director of Capital Business Media Group and SME research firm Trends Research, and is considered one of the UK’s leading experts on the SME sector and an active angel investor and advisor to new start-ups. Richard is also the host of Save Our Business, a US-based business advice TV show.
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