Battered but not quite broken up, the UK emerged from 2014 with its head above water, although only just. The year began with gales and storms as much of the south-west endured record rainfall. In Devon, a stretch of the mainline railway to London was washed into the sea, while lowland areas of Somerset disappeared under flood water. At times it felt biblical, and some people started to believe it was: a Ukip councillor wondered if it might all be God’s punishment for permitting same-sex marriage (he was suspended for his trouble).
Divine retribution aside, the overarching story of the year went to the heart of the nation: whether Scotland would, in a September referendum, vote to end its 307-year-old union with England and Wales. Inspired by Scottish National party leader Alex Salmond’s optimistic (idealistic, the critics claimed) vision, a younger generation of Scots saw a way to rid themselves of unrepresentative Westminster governance, take control of North Sea oil revenue, forge closer bonds with Europe and dispense with Trident nuclear submarines. A hidebound Better Together campaign struggled to capture imaginations in the same way.
The Yes campaign made steady ground in the polls until, with just a fortnight to go, it nudged ahead for the first time and panic swept through Westminster. In the event the union survived, Scots voting 55.3% to 44.7% in favour, but only thanks to hastily assembled cross-party pledges of substantial further devolution from London. A historic deal in November gave Holyrood direct control over £14bn ($22bn) worth of tax and welfare policy. But the longer-term consequences for the union may lie south of the border, where England’s disgruntled regions eye Scottish gains with envy.
June saw the culmination of one of the costliest trials and most far-reaching police investigations in British criminal history. At the Old Bailey, former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was acquitted of four charges of conspiring to hack phones while editor of the News of the World and making corrupt payments to public officials when she was editor of the Sun. But Andy Coulson (pictured with Brooks), another ex-News of the World editor and David Cameron’s former communications chief, was found guilty, forcing the prime minister to issue a “full and frank apology” for hiring him.
Economically, it was a year of contradictions. The UK entered 2014 on the back of its strongest growth for six years, but with wages flat and more workers forced to accept ultra-flexible zero-hours contracts, few people felt better off. More lurid headlines about banking scandals, corporate tax avoidance and exorbitant boardroom pay did little to qualify Tory chancellor George Osborne’s much-ridiculed assertion that “we’re all in it together”.
While the outlook for business remained encouraging, by the end of the year growth was slowing down with signs that the housing bubble in the south-east had peaked. With a general election less than six months away, the coalition government faced an uphill challenge to persuade a sceptical electorate of its economic prowess.
It all added to the sense of a nation that often seemed ill at ease with itself. Disillusionment with Westminster politics, particularly outside London, led to an upsurge of support for Nigel Farage’s Ukip. Sharp Ukip gains in European elections in May were compounded for Cameron by two byelection defeats in which both sitting Tory MPs resigned and won back their seats as Ukip candidates. Farage’s anti-EU, anti-immigration drumbeat found appeal with disillusioned Labour voters as well as Tories, and by the end of the year it was comfortably the third largest party in the polls. The Greens also made gains at the expense of the centre parties, leaving the prospect of a hung parliament next May looking increasingly likely.
Yet rose-tinted Ukip invocations of a bygone Britain jarred uncomfortably with darker revelations from the recent past. Following the Jimmy Savile child abuse revelations, more historical celebrity sexual allegations reached the courts. The publicist Max Clifford and veteran children’s entertainer Rolf Harris were both found guilty of indecent assaults on young girls and jailed.
Ominously, evidence of historical child abuse on a far wider scale began to emerge. In Rotherham, South Yorkshire, an independent inquiry concluded that at least 1,400 children in the area had been subjected to sexual abuse between 1997 and 2013.
On a more positive note, in August Kate Bush made her first touring appearances since 1979, a 22-night residency at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, which sold out in 15 minutes. As Bushmania briefly gripped the country, she became the first female performer to have eight albums in the UK Top 40 at the same time.
In November, thousands flocked to the Tower of London, where the last of 888,246 red ceramic poppies were placed in the moat, marking the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war, and the British and Commonwealth servicemen who died in it. The installation was not without its controversy but, for a short while at least, it gave the country valuable pause to reflect on the ties that bind it.
