Happy New Year

Happy New Year

“Pour me another,  lets toast the new year
Here’s to a better, put  fizz in our cheer”

Tonight’s  not for sorrows, nor mulling old wounds
Come banish our troubles,  lets sing some new tunes

Caught in the present is a moment to choose
To look forwards or backwards, to win or to lose

If your comfort is  clinging to all that has past
This precious moment of hope will never last

Grasping  the future and its  unknown way
Can bring success and many a wonderful day

The past is well trodden,  we know the ending
The future is for moulding, shaping, bending

As last year expires,  hopes and promises broken
Change things this time , leave pledges unspoken

So pour me another,drink to the new year

here’s to a better, put fizz in our cheer

If your life is a drama  you can change the plot
If your friends are the  actors you can recast the lot

If people around you are holding you back
Tell them you’re changing, to a new track

Lets hold on to clichés that drive us to more
Lets venture out from  behind that closed door

We can stretch for the stars and strive for the sun
We can soar with  the wind making life more fun

You are only out of the game  when you give up the play
So write some new words so you have a new  say

Aim for something better, embrace the best
You may fall short of target  but gain from the quest

So cast off the old. Live a new dream
Grab the future foretold. Mine a new seam

So pour me another, lets toast the new year
Here’s to a better, put fizz in our cheer

Trust that  tomorrow can be better than today
Let the future  empower us with its  new way

Lets cast off from austerity, from all those extra  taxes

Lets go for growth as austerity relaxes

Lets make our own minds up and set our own pace

The future is only ours, my friend, if it we  embrace
Tonight is the night to reach for the new

 

So pour me another, lets toast the new year

Here’s to a better, put fizz in our cheer

28 Comments

  1. William Long
    December 31, 2022

    A very happy New Year to you, Sir John, and many thanks for providing a voice of sanity in 2022.

  2. formula57
    December 31, 2022

    A happy New Year to you Sir John.

    All your considerable efforts show there is at least one person in Parliament who speaks and acts for the people. Thank you.

  3. Mickey Taking
    December 31, 2022

    I doubt 2023 can be worse than 2022, but there is not much evidence for cheer.
    Rather than forget our troubles by tipping the bottle up until dry, I’d prefer some concrete indications that those in power exercise it for the good of the country and its people, rather than looking after chums and those who can be influenced.
    I wish you and yours and all contributors here ‘A very Happy New Year, you deserve it after what has gone before’.

  4. Lynn
    December 31, 2022

    Happy New Year to you Sir John. May the traditional British instincts and standards win the day and allow us to return to our peaceful, generous, honest, lawful, happy Christian ways.
    Happy New Year to all those with the nouse to read the thoughts and ideas of John Redwood on this marvellous blog. No better way for any MP to keep his ear to the ground and to remain connected to his and his parties constituency. Pity there are not 600 odd up and running.

  5. John Hatfield
    December 31, 2022

    An excellent poem John. Sadly, with Hunt in No11 and Sunak in No10, I don’t share its optimism.

  6. glen cullen
    December 31, 2022

    SirJ thank you for providing this service, the only light in a politically dark spectrum, good luck 2023

  7. David Paine
    December 31, 2022

    Happy New Year to you Sir John.
    Hope those in Government start taking note of your advice.

  8. Joan Sawyers
    December 31, 2022

    A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND ALL YOUR STAFF AND FAMILY

  9. Kenneth
    December 31, 2022

    Happy new year to John and all reading this!

  10. Margaretbj.
    December 31, 2022

    Happy New Year.

  11. Kayla Tomlinson
    December 31, 2022

    Happy New Year and let’s hope 2023 is a better one!

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      January 1, 2023

      Kayla. Is that the drink talking or you being silly?

  12. Mike Wilson
    December 31, 2022

    I’m sorry Mr. Redwood but silly stuff about fizz etc. is not going to make a bit of difference to the bleakest new year I prospect in my lifetime – courtesy of your government.

    Happy New Year? It seems unlikely.

  13. Peter Gardner
    January 1, 2023

    Happy New Year to you, Sir John Redwood. Thank you for your many interesting posts over the years – one of the few sensible commonsense voices in politics.
    I have a wish for 2023. It is that the Conservative Party should work out what it is for. ‘Broad Church’ no longer cuts it. It’s all over the place. We need from the Conservatives a coherent set of policies and the will to deliver them. Can you, would you please try to make it come true?
    At the beginning of the Party’s leadership campaign Paul Goodman wrote on Conservative Home that if the membership and Parliamentary members wanted conflicting policies, the Party would have a serious problem. That has turned out to be the case. If the Party cannot develop a coherent set of policies around a recognisable philosophy of government applied to the needs of the UK that is supported by all factions of the party, it will need to face the prospect of splitting.
    Please, please make the Party get a grip.

    1. Peter Gardner
      January 1, 2023

      PS. I recall that during the EU referendum campaign David Cameron said at one point that the UK no longer had the capacity for self-government. It is untrue that British institutions of the state have been weakened by decades of EU government – not to mention Blair’s vandalism. There is a clear need for this capacity to be be rebuilt, which requires the same sort of thinking the Conservatives need to get to grips with in order to work out what their party is for. Perhaps that would be a good place to start: how to build capacity for self-government.

      1. Peter Gardner
        January 1, 2023

        Oh dear, having a bad day. Typo. Apologies. I meant to say , “It is true that British institutions of the state have been weakened by decades of EU government”

        1. Cheshire Girk
          January 1, 2023

          Happy New Year, Sir John. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to post our thoughts on this blog, and for your patience in reading it, in your busy life. It is much appreciated.

  14. Fedupsoutherner
    January 1, 2023

    We’re all embracing the new year john but is your government?

  15. Mark B
    January 1, 2023

    Good morning and a Happy New Year to our kind host and all here on this Diary.

  16. Donna
    January 1, 2023

    Good morning and I wish a Happy New Year to Sir John and all those who comment on his blog.

    However, I don’t share his optimism. I think Dan Hannan over at the DT has it about right. 2022 was dreadful and thanks largely to Sunak, Hunt and the ConSocialists, 2023 will be even worse. Drowning their sorrows at the bottom of a bottle is probably what a lot of people are going to resort to.

    1. Geoffrey Berg
      January 1, 2023

      Though I agree 2022 was dreadful and 2023 will be even worse, the Conservatives are being hammered for what they did wrong and getting no credit for what they did right on this site and elsewhere. Boris Johnson was the best leader in the world by a long way in his handling of the war in Ukraine and he was one of the best leaders in the world in dealing with Covid. Liz Truss was part right in her growth strategy and in any case Labour will be even worse, not better, even where the Conservatives are wrong, as now on the economy.
      Good poem from Sir John Redwood- maybe he should be made poet laureate!

  17. Walt
    January 1, 2023

    Thank you, Sir John, and a Happy New Year to you and to the readers of your Diary.

  18. David L
    January 1, 2023

    A happy new year to all who contribute to the discussions on this site, and not least to Sir John.

    Noticeable during the freezing temperatures we’ve just had was quite how motionless were the wind turbines around Berkshire. I hope we will have a rational energy policy brought in very soon, it’s really urgent. Make it your Resolution, sir!

  19. a-tracy
    January 1, 2023

    Goodmorning,
    Happy New Year 2023 đŸ„ł
    Keep putting the fizz in your cheer John!
    There aren‘t many places you can‘t get to read such a variety of political posts and comments, you must be doing something right to have so many women commenting, rare in the political blog world, and so many lefties who want to join in and tell us how wrong we are.

  20. Bert Young
    January 1, 2023

    A happy and rewarding year also to you Sir John .
    Best regards .

  21. R.T.G.
    January 1, 2023

    Happy New Year, Sir John, and all the best to you and yours and all who comment thoughtfully here on your informative and valuable site.

  22. a-tracy
    January 1, 2023

    I think that everything wrong at the moment in the UK is summed up this New Year by firework celebrations.

    I read that in Paris 1m people gathered, no mentioned of high charges and ticket restrictions, 1m people gathered in Sydney but London 100,000 restricted tickets probably gifted to the great and good. 30,000 in Edinburgh, no mention of Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol. We‘d rather talk about elsewhere in the World. So much for levelling up, left out, left behind and just bleh. The little people just need to pay up and take what you‘re given.

    How many VIP seats were reserved in London and Edinburgh in the best hotels cordoned off. A Labour Mayor, a man of the people, its just a joke.

  23. Guy Liardet
    January 1, 2023

    Did you read Parris on Truss? Predictable disaster. Do take a proper look at NET ZERO and its damaging futility. Lord Gummer can’t do sums. He will ruin us. CO2 is not harmful

Comments are closed.