Welcome to a special year-end edition of Declassified, a humor column
Thanks for nothing, 2025. It was a burning dumpster fire of a year and one in which most of us wished we were either Suni Williams or Butch Wilmore.
Williams and Wilmore were astronauts who were supposed to be in space for around 10 days but ended up staying for nearly 10 months, thus not getting back to Earth until March this year and missing almost three months of the misery. “Welcome back, guys. There’s good news and bad news: the good news is you’re home safe and sound; the bad news is Kamala Harris didn’t win the election.”
The election winner, Donald Trump, of course, dominated the news agenda in the same way that a bear would dominate the honey section if let loose in a supermarket. He slapped hastily thought-out tariffs on everything and everyone, including uninhabited islands near Antarctica. And he spectacularly fell out with Elon Musk, who, like Lazarus, flew too close to the bright (orange) sun.
In Europe, it’s been a strange year. Germany swapped Captain Charisma himself, Olaf Scholz, for Friedrich Merz, who always looks like you’ve just taken his supermarket parking space, even though he was patiently waiting ages for it. France and Italy swapped places, with the latter the model of stability while the former turned itself into (an exquisite, handcrafted) basket case in which so many people became prime minister that, at the time of writing, Eric Cantona is the holder of that office.
In Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen has been about as popular as unwanted invasive surgery and survived not one but three confidence votes in the European Parliament, which these days leans so far to the right that it’s in danger of collapse.
But there have been some success stories. The new pope seems nice, meaning the Catholic Church has broken the good pope/bad pope cycle of recent times. And António Costa does a much better job as European Council president — a role that, as far as we can make out, involves ordering enough sparkling water for meetings — than Charles Michel did. Admittedly, a discarded Exki sandwich wrapper would have outperformed Michel, but these days, you take the wins where you can get them.
So here’s to the sunlit uplands of 2026. It can’t be worse, can it?
QUOTE OF THE YEAR: “It’s a shitty sign for European majorities, it is a shitty sign for Europe, it is shitty for the fight against climate change.” Greens group co-leader Terry Reintke did not like the EU’s conservatives teaming up with the far right in the European Parliament.
Who’s been up
I kissed a PM: In the immortal words of Avril Lavigne: He was a prime minister, she was a pop star, can I make it any more obvious? Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry are officially dating. Turns out all it takes is a cringeworthy space-tourism stunt and a resignation-in-disgrace for a power couple to blossom. There’s hope for everyone, folks.
The survivalist: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen managed to survive a total of three no-confidence motions this year. Far-right and far-left parties both took their shot, proving it’s not about ideology — they just don’t like her. And people say society is hopelessly divided.
Who’s been down
U.S.-EU relations: Remember when the U.S. actually liked the EU? Vice President JD Vance doesn’t. At the Munich Security Conference, he took a swing at European democracies, insisting their biggest threat isn’t Russia but their own culture wars. With friends like these …
Royal titles: The Duke of York, Prince Andrew, is no more. He shall now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. Which, as far as middle names go, is punishment enough. His big brother Charlie also cut his public funding: If Mountbatten ever needs a job, there’s always Pizza Express.
Backhanded award for outstanding use of political chaos in a democracy
What a year it’s been for Marine Le Pen and French politics, which gave Italy a rare year off from being Europe’s chaotic mascot.
The leader of the far-right National Rally party has been banned from running for office for five years, after an EU Parliament fake-jobs scam in March. In theory, that knocks her out of the 2027 presidential race, assuming we still have functioning democracies by then. Her career should have flatlined right there.
But Marine is no quitter, especially with right-hand man Barbie Bardella waiting — a tad too eagerly — in the wings to pick up the mantle. All she needed was for the French electorate to get distracted by fresher scandals and let her quietly plot her comeback.
Enter: President Emmanuel Macron and a case study for confident-straight-white-men-bordering-on-delusion syndrome. He burned through prime ministers faster than Samantha Jones cycled through boyfriends, seemingly baffled each time one bailed. It’s almost cute that he never once considered he might be the problem.
Maybe it is time for a woman president to bring stability to France after all: Look at Italy and its absolutely-not-neo-fascist government, for instance.
Oh, how the tables have turned.
CAPTION COMPETITION OF THE YEAR
“He’s coming! Quick, be a statue.”
by Willem Callens