Opinion | The highlights of a decade

By Elisha Mans, Deputy Opinion Editor

Welcoming in 2010 feels like a long time ago; truth be told, I have absolutely no idea how I celebrated the turn of the decade because I would have only been nine. Imagine a celebrating New Years’ without alcohol; it’s safe to say I started the decade fresh faced and innocent.

At the turn of the decade, we’d have seen a country led by Gordon Brown, pre-Brexit and barely scraping by after the financial crash. I think it’s fair to say a lot has changed since then.

Presuming you’re around your early twenties, like me, you probably don’t even really remember a time when politics wasn’t absolute chaos, the start of the decade came straight in with a whopper of a political change with the Cameron-Clegg coalition.

‘That is the end of two-party politics forever’ people cried.

Since then we have seen Cameron as PM, then he resigned. Then we got May collaborating with the DUP, then she resigned. Then we got Boris lying to the queen and getting elected anyway – let’s speak no more about that one.

However, if we think exclusively about of the dark side of politics of the decade as the defining feature then we are bound to get depressed; regardless of your standing on the political spectrum I think that we can agree that this level of tumultuousness cannot be efficient. With Brexit causing absolute chaos one might start to think that this is hardly Britain’s brightest. And yet, there have been some truly great moments.

I, for one, would like to pay tribute to the greatest defining political incident of the 2010s… Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich with such rogue ferocity that it sent Britain into a frenzy.

And, in fact, when I think of other great incidents that truly show the British spirit, it has got to be a giant baby Trump flying nonchalantly over the streets of London, we’d never have seen that with Obama so that’s at least one thing to be grateful for. Or what about the only thing that anyone at school could talk about for weeks; the death of our great savior Harambe.

I think we can agree that this level of tumultuousness cannot be efficient

These frankly bizarre events are what I would like to think of as the great part of Britain in the 2010s since I don’t personally rate our performance on the world stage in terms of the moves of Westminster.

Whilst the events of the 2010s, in particular Brexit, have been chaotic and concerning, which is probably the greatest understatement of the century (or decade!), at least nothing will be as chaotic as the days of Flappy Bird. I feel truly like you are not in your late teens/early twenties unless you remember the addictiveness of that game; and the crazy news stories about Flappy Bird addiction that came off the back of it, it was truly times wilder than any political event which could define us.