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Ah, Billy Joel. The piano man who once sang of an unstoppable blaze that’s been burning “since the world’s been turning.” Little did he know, decades later, we’d be taking frantic notes on how to handle the ever-growing conflagration.
As we step cautiously into 2025, it seems the heat has been turned up several notches, and all our attempts at controlling the flames have fallen somewhere between dire and dismal. If the political prognostications are to be believed—and they’re looking depressingly accurate these days—we might just need the world’s biggest fire extinguisher to keep this incoming year from resembling a global bonfire of sanity, sensibility, and solvency.
Let us begin across the pond at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where, incredibly (or inevitably), Donald Trump will be reinserting himself behind the Resolute Desk on January 20th. The question, as always, is: who is he more resolute against—foreign adversaries, the US Constitution, or the hapless staffers caught in his crosshairs? He’s made it crystal clear he’s back, and he’s bigger, brasher, and bolder than ever. This is his re-coronation, after all. There’s something perversely admirable about the man’s chutzpah—like a pantomime villain who insists on returning season after season to rapturous boos from the stalls.
His supporters, of course, are more enthralled than ever, vigorously chanting about rigged elections and building new (or perhaps bigger) walls. They never stopped singing, “We didn’t start the fire,” because for them, The Donald is but a lightning rod. The fires are always someone else’s fault—China, Mexico, or the dreaded “mainstream media.” So pass the popcorn. This 2025 reboot of Trump: The White House Years might just be the box-office smash we’re all too exhausted to endure.
Meanwhile, back here in Blighty, it’s New Year’s Day, and the weather forecast is bleak— both figuratively and economically speaking. Whispers from the City suggest Rachel Reeves—the Labour Chancellor, or “the Iron Chancellor with rust around the edges,” depending on whom you ask—has been busy with her own brand of economic fireworks. We all prayed for grown-up economics: fair taxation, sensible spending, a balanced budget by the end of the century, maybe? Instead, we got a pyrotechnic show of tax hikes, missed targets, and the near-extinction of small businesses the entire UK farming community plus a potential brain-drain of entrepreneurs and income generators.
If the Treasury’s goal was to turn the UK into a cautionary tale for first-year economics students, it’s absolutely smashing it. Perhaps the single saving grace is that nobody can quite remember if there were any workable alternatives. We didn’t start the fire, but heaven knows it might have been nice if we’d kept a bucket of water ready just in case.
As if that weren’t enough, we’re watching British schools become veritable sardine tins, absolutely bursting at the seams with new arrivals, ironically from what used to be the private sector. Yes, you heard correctly. Private schools are predicted to be going bust left, right, and centre—unable to sustain themselves under punitive new taxes, a cost-of-living crisis that’s decimated middle-class incomes, and a wave of regulatory changes that have made top hats and Latin prayers about as fashionable as the fax machine.
Consequently, it seems half the pupils of Eton’s twin set have arrived on the doorstep of the local comprehensive, expecting someone—anyone—to teach them the difference between the subjunctive and the pluperfect, and to do it in a building that’s never been big enough for its catchment area, let alone these new overspill minor aristocrats.
The abiding question is how the already overstretched state system can possibly absorb so many new students. Some say it’s a lesson in humility for previously privileged families. Others call it a slow-burning tragedy for the entire education sector. In the grand scheme of our unstoppable inferno, it’s merely another rung on the ladder of incineration.
But let’s not forget the Nigel Farage story arc, which, like a recurring character in a soap opera you can’t quite believe is still alive, just keeps on turning up. He’s no longer just the cheeky scamp behind Brexit or the mouthpiece for disgruntled ex-Tories: oh no, this time if you believe the rumours swirling through the soggy tea rooms of Westminster, he might be poised to become Britain’s next Prime Minister.
Laugh all you like—but that cackle might catch in your throat when you see the polling data. It turns out that, in times of crisis, the British public has a curious habit of turning to the maddest-sounding option possible. For those who recall the night of the Brexit vote—arguably the night we collectively popped one of the biggest fireworks in our post-war history—there’s a creeping sense of déjà vu. Are we really about to anoint Farage with the biggest seat of power in the land? The thought alone could spark a meltdown so nuclear it’d make Sellafield’s radioactive stockpile look like a scented candle.
So here we are, 2025: a year that already feels like we’re all dancing on the rim of a volcano, while the embers from last year’s bonfire still glow beneath our feet. Some might protest that “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” but look around: between Trump’s second (or is it third?) coming, Reeves’s economic miscalculations, children fleeing bankrupt private schools, and the looming threat of a Farage-led government, we’re staring at a tinderbox. The conflagration could be unstoppable—yet again. But despair not entirely.
Human history has shown us that we’re a remarkably adaptive species. We keep going, stumbling from one year to the next, occasionally setting ourselves aflame in the process. True, 2025 might very well shape up to 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 are still here.
Of course, perhaps we do need that world’s biggest fire extinguisher. Let’s pray we find one before we’re all reduced to ashes of self-inflicted stupidity.
Regardless, as we ring in the new year, brace for the possibility that the blaze might only intensify. Trump’s in the White House, Farage is circling Downing Street, our schools are creaking at the rafters, and the economy is rattling like a tea tray in an earthquake.
The question, dear readers, is: do we actually want to put out the fire? Or, like some mesmerised pyromaniac, do we find ourselves unhealthily fascinated by the flames? Only time will tell, but for now, it’s worth stocking up on extinguishers. We didn’t start it. But if 2025 is set to be the biggest bonfire yet, we’d better figure out how to at least keep the sparks from singeing our sanity. After all, there’s only so long we can stand the heat. And as Billy Joel might remind us: the world’s still turning.
Richard Alvin
Richard Alvin is a serial entrepreneur, a former advisor to the UK Government about small business and an Honorary Teaching Fellow on Business at Lancaster University.
A winner of the London Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the year and Freeman of the City of London for his services to business and charity. Richard is also Group MD of Capital Business Media and SME business research company Trends Research, regarded as one of the UK’s leading experts in the SME sector and an active angel investor and advisor to new start companies.
Richard is also the host of Save Our Business the U.S. based business advice television show.
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