Adam Boulton: Things may be bad, but there are reasons to be cheerful in 2024
If you think this has been a pretty tough year, you are not alone.
The annual Global Advisor survey conducted around the world by Ipsos records that a majority of us, 53%, think 2023 has been a bad year for us and our family.
Worse, a significantly greater proportion, 70%, say it has been a bad year for their country. This finding perhaps explains the widespread disillusionment with politics and, often, the governments in power.
Let’s face it: things have not gone well abroad or at home in 2023. The second year of war in Ukraine has been joined by the vicious conflagration in the seemingly intractable confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis.
Dozens of other insurgencies and regional wars are being fought out around the world.
In the UK the economy is teetering on the brink of recession as the cost of living pinches. Inflation hit a record high this century, so have NHS waiting lists and immigration into this country.
In spite of all these challenges and suffering, optimism remains an essential element of the human spirit. There are some reasons to be cheerful at the end of this year and as we head into the next.
Things may be bad but we seem to think that things have improved a little bit over the past twelve months, and we are looking forward to them getting better in 2024.
Even the grim majority judging this to be a bad year is smaller than twelve months ago, and has at last recovered to levels before the life-changing COVID pandemic. Worldwide 70% think that next year will be better than this one – up by 5% last year.
Great Britain comes 26th out of the 35 nations picked out by Ipsos, with 64% “optimistic that 2024 will be a better year for me than 2023”. That is just below Spain (66%) and the US (65%) but better than Italy (59%), Germany (57%) and France (46%).
There are still major financial worries; though here the gloom lifted slightly to its lowest since the end of 2021.
Ipsos’ net economic optimism index is still pessimistic at -28, but it is now moving in the right direction.
Only 22% think the economy will improve in the next year but that is up +3 from last month.
A sobering 50% say it will get worse, though that is down five. Still, stock markets are up and the expectations are that energy costs are heading downward.
A major factor behind the gradual return in confidence may be that people feel less powerless.
Many have the opportunity to make changes next year. More people than ever, around four billion globally, will have the chance to take part in elections next year in more than 70 countries, some 40 of which are considered to be free and fair democracies.
Not all these elections hold out the possibility of regime change.
That could happen in general elections in the US on 5 November, and in the UK, sometime next year and not the last possible date in January 2025, according to the prime minister.
There are also general or presidential elections in South Korea, South Africa, Pakistan, India and Russia – in descending order of those likely to be fair.
The elections for the European Parliament across the EU will give an important indication of the strength of populist concerns about immigration.
The British prime minister has not yet delivered his pledge to “stop the boats” but he can claim credit for reducing the number crossing the Channel by a third – largely through increased co-operation with Albania and France, rather than the expensive and stymied deportation to Rwanda policy.
After the three prime ministers in 2022 and the turmoil of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak has brought stability to UK politics, just as things seem settled for now in the British monarchy.
He has not been rewarded with loyalty from his own MPs, and they remain perhaps the greatest threat to his chances of holding the election at the time of his choosing – seemingly next autumn, as he chalks up two years in 10 Downing Street.
Labour’s lead in the opinion polls remains commanding, although over the year it has trimmed from an average of 20% to 18%. Labour’s strength has been confirmed in local elections and by-election victories.
These also included a decline in support for the Scottish National Party, which could be a decisive factor in a clear victory for Sir Keir Starmer. There will be another by-election test early in 2024 in Peter Bone’s former seat of Wellingborough.
In the general election year, the pressure will be on Sir Keir as an apparent prime minister in waiting.
The Conservatives are already targeting him as a “lefty lawyer”. Much more importantly for the health of the country, Labour will be under intense scrutiny for its own policies and ideas to rebuild the country, rather than simply pointing to the failures of the Conservatives over the past 13 years.
Whatever the outcome of the British general election of 2024 there will be a major clear out and refresh of the compromised and discredited political elite. Over 70 incumbent MPs have announced their intention of standing down, more than 50 of them Conservatives.
That figure is expected to climb towards 100 once the poll is imminent.
Jeopardy seems greater in the United States, where one way or another the Donald Trump issue will be settled.
There is an urgent need for that. Current conventional wisdom is that he is on course to secure the Republican nomination, and narrow favourite to beat Joe Biden in November.
I believe that democracy in America is not so supine. I expect that campaign 2024 will be tumultuous. Mr Trump has deepening legal problems and most Americans think Mr Biden is too old to be re-elected. It is too soon to conclude that either or both will be the main candidates come the vote.
Twenty-two months after Russia’s all-out attack, and a decade after its occupation of some of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has still not conquered his neighbour, after the loss of over 300,000 of his troops.
There are concerns about Ukraine-fatigue and the willingness of Western allies to sustain Ukraine’s defence.
But Nato has revived and embraced Ukraine while the EU has accepted it as an applicant country. Mr Putin will never prevail in extinguishing Ukraine as an independent nation.
It is even harder to identify glimmers of hope in the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East – the horrific terror attack on Israel by Hamas and the heavy-handed response by Israel to track down killers who are using the civilian population of Gaza and their Israeli hostages as human shields. At least the war has not yet spread across the region.
An Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip
After decades of negligence by the international community, it is apparent that neither the status quo before the 7 October attack nor the respective policies of the Netanyahu and Hamas-led governments are viable going forward.
Nobody has a better answer than a two-state solution, which has been increasingly advocated by foreign governments including the UK, US and EU. Whatever the belligerents are saying, my expectation is that over time a two-state solution will be imposed, by external international pressure if necessary.
The Ipsos survey identified other major global concerns. 2023 has been the hottest year on record and 81% expect average global temperatures will be higher in 2024. A majority think artificial intelligence will cost more jobs than it creates. 59% expect to spend more time in the office and less working from home.
Each of these can be subject to a glass-half-full or half-empty analysis. This has already been applied to this December’s COP28 which the UN says signals “the beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era.
Most of us are only just waking up to the possibilities opened by AI, while lawmakers are rightly alert to its implications. Similarly we are still feeling our way towards the best hybrid balances for work and home; when we get there both productivity and well-being will improve.
This season we should not let these great challenges get us down. We have good reasons to hope for a happier new year.
UK
Government draws link between good weather and small boat crossings – but they are rising during bad conditions too
A new Home Office report has linked the UK’s balmy start to 2025 to a dramatic rise in the number of small boat crossings when compared to the same period last year.
However, analysis by the Sky News data team shows that there has also been a big rise in crossings on days when the weather has been poor.
A record 11,074 people arrived in small boats before May this year, a rise of almost 50% compared with the same period last year.
According to the Home Office figures, 60 of those days this year were classed as “red days” – where Channel crossings are more likely because of good weather – compared with just 27 last year.
In a new report released today, the Home Office says that the doubling of red days from January to April 2025, compared with the same period in 2024, “coincides with small boat arrivals being 46% higher” over that period.
Our analysis, using similar criteria to the Home Office, but not attempting to directly replicate their methodology, agrees that there have been an unusually high number of days this year when the weather makes for good sailing conditions.
But it also shows that there are significantly more people making the crossing when the weather is not ideal – a rise of 30% on last year, and more than double compared with the year before.
We’ve classified the weather as being favourable on a day when, for several consecutive hours early in the morning, wave height, wind speed, rain and atmospheric pressure were all at levels the Met Office says typically contribute to good conditions for sailing. There’s more detail on our methodology lower down this page.
There is a clear link between better weather and more people arriving in the UK on small boats.
An average of 190 people per day have arrived so far this year when the weather has been fair, compared with 60 on days with less consistently good conditions.
But if we look just at the days when the weather is not so good, we can also see a clear and consistent rise in the numbers over time.
That average of 60 arrivals per “low viability” day is a rise of more than 30% on last year, and more than double the 24 that arrived on each similar day in 2023.
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UK sees new Channel migrant record
There are a range of reasons why more people could be crossing on bad weather days.
Smuggler tactics are changing, and Home Office data shows severely overcrowded boats are becoming more common.
In the year to April 2022, just 2% of boats had 60 or more people on board, compared with 47% in the year to April 2025.
In other words, in the space of three years, the number of boats with more than 60 on board has gone from 1 in 50 to every second boat.
Dr Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, told Sky News that a rise in demand due to geopolitical issues, like the situation in Afghanistan, may be a factor, but that it is interesting that illegal entries to the EU are down while they have risen in the UK.
What is the Home Office doing?
The current government has placed a major emphasis on disrupting the smuggler gang supply chains to restrict the number of boats and engines making it to the French coast.
Part of the problem is that French authorities are unable to intercept boats once they are already in the water, which is believed to have been exacerbated by good weather.
The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has confirmed the French government is reviewing its policies after she pressed for a law change that would allow police in France to apprehend migrants in shallow waters.
The Home Office released figures on Thursday that revealed France is intercepting fewer Channel migrants than ever before, despite signing a £480m deal with the UK to stop the crossings.
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‘Britain has lost control of its borders’
How are we defining good and bad days?
The Home Office says that its assessments of the likelihood of small boat crossings are passed to it by the Met Office.
“A Red, Amber, Green (RAG) daily crossing assessment is produced of the likelihood of small boat crossing activity based on the forecasted wave height and other environmental and non-environmental factors; such as rates of precipitation, surf conditions on beaches, wind speed and direction, open-source forecasts, and recent trends.”
We’ve not tried to replicate that methodology directly. But we’ve looked at Met Office categorisations for wave height, wind speed, atmospheric pressure and rain, four factors that each contribute to fair conditions for sailing in a small boat.
They say a wind speed of 5m/s is a “gentle breeze”. They classify precipitation as at least 0.1mm of rain per hour. If the “significant wave height” – the height of the highest one third of waves – is below 0.5m, they say that’s “smooth”.
Standard pressure at sea level is 1,013hPa, and high pressure “tends to lead to settled weather conditions” . We’ve set the minimum pressure at 1,015hPa, on the high side of standard, and used the thresholds listed above for the other metrics.
We’ve categorised a “high viability” day as one in which all four of those conditions were met in the Dover Strait for at least four consecutive hours, between 2am and 6am UK time.
A “low viability” day is where there is no more than one hour during which all those conditions were met. And “medium” is when the conditions are met for 2-3 hours.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
The UK will be forced to agree this month to increase defence spending to 3.5% of national income within a decade as part of a NATO push to rearm and keep the US on side, Sky News understands.
The certainty of a major policy shift means there is bemusement in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about why Sir Keir Starmer‘s government has tied itself in knots over whether to describe an earlier plan to hit 3% of GDP by the 2030s as an ambition or a commitment, when it is about to change.
The problem is seen as political, with the prime minister needing to balance warfare against welfare – more money for bombs and bullets or for winter fuel payments and childcare.
Follow live updates: Does the UK need an ‘Iron Dome’ system?
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a visit to a military base training Ukrainian troops in April. File pic: PA
Sir Keir is due to hold a discussion to decide on the defence spending target as early as today, it is understood.
As well as a rise in pure defence spending of 3.5% by 2035, he will also likely be forced to commit a further 1.5% of GDP to defence-related areas such as spy agencies and infrastructure. Militaries need roads, railway networks, and airports to deploy at speed.
This would bolster total broader defence spending to 5% – a target Mark Rutte, the head of NATO, wants all allies to sign up to at a major summit in the Netherlands later this month.
It is being referred to as the “Hague investment plan”.
Asked what would happen at the summit, a defence source said: “3.5% without a doubt.”
Yet the prime minister reiterated the 3% ambition when he published a major defence review on Monday that placed “NATO first” at the heart of UK defence policy.
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What’s in the UK Strategic Defence Review?
The defence source said: “How can you have a defence review that says NATO first” and then be among the last of the alliance’s 32 member states – along with countries like Spain – to back this new goal?
Unlike Madrid, London presents itself as the leading European nation in the alliance.
A British commander is always the deputy supreme allied commander in Europe – the second most senior operational military officer – under an American commander, while the UK’s nuclear weapons are committed to defending the whole of NATO.
Even Germany, which has a track record of weak defence spending despite boasting the largest economy, has recently signalled it plans to move investment towards the 5% level, while Canada, also previously feeble, is making similar noises.
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Is the UK battle ready?
The source signalled it was inconceivable the UK would not follow suit and said officials across Whitehall understand the spending target will rise to 3.5%.
The source said it would be met by 2035, so three years later than the timeline Mr Rutte has proposed.
Defence spending is currently at 2.3%.
A second defence source said the UK has to commit to this spending target, “or else we can no longer call ourselves a leader within NATO”.
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PM challenged on NATO, defence and Gaza
Read more:
UK to build weapons factories
Russian-linked hackers targeted MoD
Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby challenged the prime minister on the discrepancy between his spending ambitions and those of his allies at a press conference on Monday.
Sir Keir seemed to hint change might be coming.
“Of course, there are discussions about what the contribution should be going into the NATO conference in two or three weeks’ time,” he said.
“But that conference is much more about what sort of NATO will be capable of being as effective in the future as it’s been in the last 80 years. It is a vital conversation that we do need to have, and we are right at the heart of that.”
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Mr Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, said last week he assumes alliance members will agree to a broad defence spending target of 5% of gross domestic product during the summit in The Hague on 24 and 25 June.
NATO can only act if all member states agree.
“Let’s say that this 5%, but I will not say what is the individual breakup, but it will be considerably north of 3% when it comes to the hard spend [on defence], and it will be also a target on defence-related spending,” the secretary general said.
The call for more funding comes at a time when allies are warning of growing threats from Russia, Iran, and North Korea as well as challenges posed by China.
But it also comes as European member states need to make NATO membership seem like a good deal for Donald Trump.
The leaders of all allies will meet in The Hague for the two-day summit.
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The US president has repeatedly criticised other member states for failing to meet a current target of spending 2% of national income on defence and has warned the United States would not come to the aid of any nation that is falling short.
Since returning to the White House, he has called for European countries to allocate 5% of their GDP to defence. This is more than the 3.4% of GDP currently spent by the US.
Mr Rutte is being credited with squaring away a new deal with Mr Trump in a meeting that would see allies increase their defence spending in line with the US president’s wishes.
The NATO chief is due to visit London on Monday, it is understood.
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