From Matt Hancock to Liz Truss: heroes and villains of the year 2022

On the villain front we were spoilt for choice in what has been another catastrophic year. The first without Covid restrictions since 2019, we were all set for an unleashing of joy and excitement. Instead, everything went wrong. To live in the UK in 2022 was like being in Stranger Things’ upside down world, where evil was coalescing in a hopeless land of dread, and we were all running up those hills away from Vecna Johnson only to run straight into Liz the Demigorgon. Things were so bad the year even killed off the seemingly immortal Queen.

It was not all villains, of course, some hope lay out there in a clutch of heroes… but let’s face it, we badly need 2023 to turn things around.

THE VILLAINS:

Will Smith

It feels like a lifetime ago, almost a different era, but Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at The Oscars did actually happen in 2022, back in March. Smith, on an evening when he would go on to win the Best Actor award win, completely lost the plot after Rock made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith’s head (Rock later confirmed he didn’t know she had alopecia). In a shocking flurry of bar-room machoism, Smith decided to storm the stage and put the other man in his place by literally slapping him down. So much for Hollywood progressiveness, this was pure old school John Wayne behaviour. Rock handled it and the aftermath with dignity and humour, while Smith…well, he’s spent his infrequent appearances since kinda apologising without really convincing people and his comeback film Emancipation flopped at the box office. Anyway, it certainly helped set us up for a year in which we were all collectively slapped again and again and again by bad news.

Piers Morgan

On his Talk TV show he’s given a platform to such loveable souls as Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate and The Liver King, and overall acted as a kind of scout leader for every old white guy spending their precious time on earth working themselves into a fury over Meghan Markle. Morgan ended the year deriding Lionel Messi’s triumph at the World Cup – one of the most fulfilling moments of 2022 - seemingly because it trumped the achievement of his beloved interviewee Cristiano Ronaldo. Perhaps some extended napping over Christmas will quell the rage.

Matt Hancock

Hancock’s memoirs, ‘Pandemic Diaries’, tried to remake his image as not the villain of the UK’s Covid response but actually, a kind of hero; the voice of reason in a failing government. All very amusing, were it not for the unnecessary deaths of thousands, until for some reason known only to him, or possibly his girlfriend, Hancock decided he should also try to win over the public with a TikTok channel and TV appearances. As if the problem with Matt Hancock is we just don’t get enough of him. Like any middle-aged man stooping for youthful relevance, he hit his head on his own jean-clad knees. He joined I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, and to everyone’s surprise, after chowing down on bugs and animal genitalia for a few weeks, the consensus was that he wasn’t such a villain, just a bit of a twerp. Redemption!

Vladimir Putin

A light-hearted heroes and villains list piece seems a bit of a trite place to include for Putin, yet he is indeed the beating black heart of the year, a vicious egomaniac dragging the world into his final death trip. A reminder that sanity is not something given, but something to fight for.

Boris Johnson

All told, it was not a great year for Boris. It was way back in January that Johnson was first forced to admit that he attended a party in Downing Street during Covid lockdown. Subsequent Partygate, howling mistakes like appointment of Chris Pincher and, y’know, becoming the first prime minister to have broken the law, eventually led to the resignation of so many government ministers that he had to accept he wasn’t Winston Churchill, he was a very naughty boy. Well, thank god for that, we thought as he resigned, now we could have someone sensible in charge…

Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng

I mean, even just a few months on, this seems like a wild hallucination, a trick of the memory. It can’t have happened, can it? A new PM and chancellor who came up with a mini-budget that tanked the economy, plunged the country into crisis and forced Truss to resign within 44 days. Nah, it can’t have happened. Not in a grown up historical country such as ours. I mean, we’re all left with the evidence of rising inflation, poverty and the collapse of the hope for the future, but maybe something else caused it; not Brexit, no, we can’t say that…not you either Hancock, sit down…oh yes: Putin.

Prince Andrew

In January he failed to have his bid to dismiss a US civil sexual assault case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre and was forced to give back his royal titles and military affiliations in order to defend the lawsuit as a private citizen. Later, he settled with her out of court. The sight of him walking behind the Queen’s coffin, produced an uncomfortable tableau for the public trying to mourn her majesty – it was best to just blur your eyes a little to blot out his face. Much as his memory blurred out the details during the twenty years he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

Elon Musk

He’s actually not a Bond villain, he’s more like some nightmare mash-up of all the children in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, bar Charlie. Musk spent another year half-bored, prankstering around with his wealth, which included a seemingly accidental purchase of Twitter. A one-man cringe machine, he yo-yo-ed in and out of the deal, finally went ahead with it and then pulled a stunt where he took a kitchen sink into Twitter HQ to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to throw the kitchen sink at this’ which was the kind of mirthless stunt that wasn’t much of a salve to the hundreds of fired of employees and thousands of Twitter users fleeing to Mastadon. Finished the year saying he’d resign if a Twitter poll asking whether he should step down as CEO went against him. 10 million people told him to go. He didn’t. On and on it goes in his romp through the Chocolate Factory while we Oompa Loompas pick up the pieces.

Neil Parish

Sometimes you think, well a lot of politicians must be smart people who are in the game for the right reasons, to help people and work to create a healthy and prosperous nation – and then you read about Neil Parish watching porn in the Commons, twice, and then saying as an excuse that he was only trying to look at pictures of tractors, twice.

Gianni Infantino

Fifa presidents have always been pantomime villains, but after Sepp Blatter, much like after Boris Johnson, you thought, ‘well the only way is up from here.’ And then Infantino appeared. Here was a man determined to make his presence felt at the Qatar World Cup, like the kid who owns the football at the park game, ready to snatch it away if anyway takes the mickey. But take the mickey they did. Well, what else could we do from the minute he appeared at a pre-tournament press conference to bat away questions about Qatar’s human rights record by suggesting he was empathetic to the discrimination against minority groups because he had ginger hair when he was little. Such pronouncements meant that whenever he was shown on the big screens during the matches – with the look of a Roman Emperor looking over his kingdom - he was roundly whistled and booed, his slipping expression captured for all to see. Later at the World Cup Final, he handed Lionel Messi the trophy but then didn’t let go of it – again, like a kid having to give another child a candy cane that actually he really really wanted for himself. People like Infantino are around forever, so best get used to him.

Jeremy Clarkson

A late entry, but you can always rely upon Clarkson to steam in during panto season with his heel act. He wrote in his newspaper column that he was having trouble sleeping because he was fantasising about Meghan Markle being paraded through the streets naked while people ‘throw lumps of excrement at her’. The kind of quasi-dream of his really nailed the Freudian aspect of this old white male revulsion to Markle, as they chew on their bedsheets sweatily enraged at the Other. Anyway, scandal stirred up, job done for Clarkson. See you again next year.

James Corden

Corden became a villain when he was rude to a waiter for getting his wife’s omelette wrong at a restaurant in New York. He later apologised but since this was played out on social media, he was established as probably a greater evil than all these other people on the list put together. And who are we to argue with social media?

Kanye West

There’s self-owning and then there’s self-owning. Or rather, there’s coming out and saying something controversial to stir up the ‘woke’ crowd, and then there’s doing interviews peddling anti-Jewish propaganda and saying “I see good things about Hitler.” His interview with Alex Jones, complete with weird puppet moment was an instant catastrophe, but even that level of engagement didn’t do true justice to what had happened here. The greatest rapper of his generation, an icon who inspired so many people to fight for their freedoms, now praising Hitler? As with many of these villains, there’s no schadenfreude here, it’s just depressing.

Boy, do we need some heroes…

THE HEROES

The Queen

Yes it’s hard to make a case that someone can be a hero just for dying, but it wasn’t just the death itself, it was the reflection of her life, and also the Platinum Jubilee in June – or platty joobs as it was dubbed, a phrase so irritating it made you cringe on a cellular level – which produced one of the greatest moments of her reign: acting opposite Paddington Bear. Even the most staunch Republican grinned their face off at that one.

President Zelensky

Quickly becoming one of the heroes of the year for his leadership in defending the country against Russia, Zelensky also understood that he needed to win the hearts and minds of countries around the world. Mobilising support, he was someone whose intelligence and basic humanity amounted to a one-man war on apathy in a world fatigued by the bad news cycle.

Sam Ryder

Runner up in the Eurovision song contest, to a worthier Ukraine victors, Sam Ryder was a reminder of what makes English people great: boundless enthusiasm, a near psychotic niceness and perfect contentment at being a loser.

Mick Lynch

One of those nightmarish things for any ruling power: a smart, funny strike organiser who can handle debate and TV interviews with Richard Madeley. Lynch was like a throwback to the days of working class heroes back in the days when the country had no money, inflation was sky high, people couldn’t heat their homes and everyone was on strike. Funny to think of that stuff now, thank heavens we’ve progressed since then.

The Lionesses

An England football team who won a tournament, and brought football home finally. There was just a positive belief running through this team that was irresistible and as attention grew around their Euros progression in July, they set the bar for any other sports people with not just their resilience and skill but the joy with which they played the game. Their final victory at Wembley was a rare moment of unifying joy for the nation.

Tom Cruise

Cruise delighted movie goers with Top Gun: Maverick, probably the most crowdpleasing film of the year. Ended the year thanking fans in a video that was filmed mid-freefall. Cruise makes fear afraid.

Billie Eilish

Became the youngest ever Glastonbury headliner and steered many more young folk into grungey clothes and mild rebellion. Just edged out the other headliner Sir Paul McCartney, simply because Eilish can jump around a lot, and jumping around a lot is a key requirement in pop.

Julia Fox

For someone who was romantically involved with Kanye West at the start of the year, Fox really pulled things out of the bag from that point on. With her eccentric manner, even more eccentric dress sense and even more eccentric turns of phrase she said things like, “I’m gonna age regardless of if I put the f*cking $500 serum on my face…and you all f*cking know it, and we know it, so let’s stop lying to ourselves…getting old is f*cking hot,” and everyone forgave her everything.

Pete Davidson

Makes this list because – [checks with female colleagues] - he is funny and has a big penis. Okay then.

The Women of Iran

The brave revolutionaries who protested against the Morality Police and repressive regime in Iran, in the wake of the death of Mahsi Amini. Many of the leading lights of the protests are even now being arrested and brutalised for their actions, with public executions now being instigated by the vile regime. True heroism is found here in those continuing to fight for freedom.

Lionel Messi

A figure who everyone could get behind. The Argentinian captain and best footballer of our era (sorry Piers), finally topped his most glorious of careers by winning the World Cup in Qatar for his country. In what was the greatest World Cup Final ever, he scored a couple of goals, converted his spot kick in the penalty shoot out and even managed to shrug off Fifa President Infantino and Salt Bae to get his hands on the trophy. Rare to have a unifying figure in football…

Jill Scott

….except we also have Jill Scott. Helped to win the Euros for the women’s England team and then won I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here. But her best moment was of course her reaction to a foul by a German player in the final, which produced the immortal line, one which summed up our entire feelings to 2022 in general: “F*ck off, you f*cking pr*ck.”