Sky News editors give their verdict on 2022 – and what could come next | UK News

It has been a year of tumultuous changes in politics, global relations, science, economics and, of course, the royal family.

But what stood out and what could happen next?

Sky News editors give their verdict.

Beth Rigby, Political Writer

I’ve been political editor at Sky News since May 2019, and when I took the job I thought if I was lucky I might see the handover once or twice. I did not expect to see three prime ministers walk through the door of number 10 in four months. It gives you perspective on the turmoil.

The Collins Dictionary revealed that the word of 2022 was permacrisis. It basically means the feeling of living in a period of war, inflation and political unrest, which sums up 2022.

The past 12 months have been politically insane. I have never experienced anything like it. But you must place the political crisis in the context of external world events.

First it was COVID, then it was war in ukraineand what you can’t predict is what might happen beyond the domestic politics that sort of defines the era we live in.

So from my point of view, I don’t think we will have the political chaos in 2023 that we had in 2022. But you can’t ignore anything in this game anymore. And let’s see what will happen in these local elections as well of May.

Listen to Beth’s Year in Review podcast:

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Tom Clarke, science and technology writer

It was a bad year for the climate. Temperatures have exceeded 40°C in the UKhurricanes in the Atlantic, catastrophic flooding in Pakistan and a global energy crisis that failed to galvanize a global climate agreement in Egypt.

The UK even managed to destroy its international green reputation by approving a new coal mine – our first in 30 years.

In Silicon Valley, 2021s highly publicized visions of the metaverse were found almost universally disappointing.

As cryptocurrencies crashed dramatically, so did confidence in Elon Musk as the reputable new owner of Twitter.

But major advances in artificial intelligence like OpenAI’s GPT3 and DeepMind’s AlphaFold reminded us that technology always has the future.

And as COVID receded, 2022 confirmed the power of vaccines. The biggest vaccine breakthrough of the year was the emergence of a vaccine that is up to 80% effective against malaria, a colossal advance in global health.

But the outbreaks of mpox, ebola and bird flu challenge any suggestion that we can let our guard down against future pandemics.

Listen to Tom’s Year in Review podcast:

Dominic Waghorn, International Affairs Editor

2022 was the year everything changed.

It wasn’t just the war in Ukraine. NATO effectively fights Russia with everything but its own troops. This has huge implications, but the war is over.

What happens in China could be even more important. Xi Jinping is now emperor in all but name, anchored in power indefinitely. A man with a sense of destiny. He wants the world order to be remade in China’s image, replacing the liberal world order that has prevailed under US hegemony since the end of the Cold War.

The battle lines are drawn between East and West, fought with arms in Ukraine, diplomatically so far between the United States and China, but with fears it will escalate in Taiwan. The greatest diplomacy is required to manage this state of affairs.

A titanic struggle is underway now in earnest; democracy versus autocracy and freedom versus dictatorship. Led by diplomats and thinkers, but also on the streets across Iran and for a brief eruption in China.

Its outcome will define the world we live in.

Listen to Dominic’s Year in Review podcast:

Ed Conway, Economics and Data Editor

It’s been an extraordinary year – in many ways in the short and long term.

Whether it be what happened with liz trusswhat happened in Ukraine, what is happening more broadly with questions about whether globalization is as we know it, how china will proceed with zero COVIDand of course with energy.

But looking towards 2023, I think things will be better in that we have already – perhaps – passed the peak of inflation. And we’ve probably passed the peak of the Bank of England rate at which they raise interest rates. The recession may not be that deep.

The concern, however, is how this is felt in the pockets of individual households – particularly in terms of power compression. And I don’t know how it resolves now.

But it’s not dark forever. There’s a huge opportunity here where the world will potentially build all of this new technology. We recently heard about nuclear fusion. We’ve heard about all these different ways to make the world better, cleaner and faster.

But it takes work. And so it takes a lot of building, and it takes a lot of mining to get there.

Listen to Ed’s Year in Review podcast:

Rhiannon Mills, royal correspondent

Looking back on the past three years, they’ve been pretty extraordinary: the death of Prince Philip, everything that happened with the Sussexes, and the stories surrounding Prince Andrew. It was a roller coaster.

And it was to be a year when things got back to normal as COVID restrictions eased, allowing the royals to return and tour again. But the stories and events that unfolded, many of us just couldn’t foresee.

I have spoken to people inside the palace and there is a feeling of weariness, a feeling of sadness and probably also a feeling of anger that Prince Harry and Meghan made their Netflix series.

Efforts have been made to make them feel included queen’s death. King Charles, in his address to the nation, spoke of the Queen’s unerring ability to see the good in everyone.

And that week around his death, it felt like they were saying, ‘Look, we’re going to put it all together… we’re all going to form a united front as a family. And then Harry and Meghan did this.

Someone at the palace told me the other day, in some ways the family is now guided by a mantra that the queen has always been guided by, which was, “Don’t look at your feet…look at the horizon .

Listen to Rhiannon’s podcast of the year in review:

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