There are two political/news reviews of the year on BBC television that merit comment. The first is Norman Smith’s Political Review of the Year, the second is Charlie Brooker’s News Wipe.

Norman Smith’s is the more dumbed down, family friendly and touchingly humorous version of 2011. However, he commences by summing up the year as being dominated by Europe and the economy. While these two issues are definitely main runners, to simplify the course of 2011 into just these issues is to misunderstand and ignore much of significance that has occurred.

Foreign Affairs
Personally, I would say the main issues of the political year had been based around foreign affairs and corruption. Norman Smith barely mentions Libya or the rapidly rising and falling of revolutions in the Middle East. Other than, of course, a poorly placed accolade for David Cameron’s wasting of £212 million.

The cynical and comedic often criticise America for being inward looking, where many people don’t own passports and their knowledge of the globe is sketchy at best. However, in Britain, we are guilty of the same thing. Europe only appears in main news to be criticised, and on occasion when we enter wars with other countries. Or perhaps you’d call it liberal intervention.

In sharp contrast, 2011 has been a real eye-opener of the vast range of dictators, presidents, prime ministers and dominating figures across the world. Charlie Brooker’s review is much more effective, if if somewhat more irreverent;

“prior to this year there seems to be very little reporting as to who the Arab leaders were, now suddenly they were everywhere being hit in the face with shoes… a cut out and keep collection of despots”

Rather than filling his programme with futile images of point-to-point horses or people smoking in the snow, Norman Smith would’ve been better off to address the wider implications of a collection of revolutions, civil wars and a literal revolution of dictators and militia.

Brooker is correct to observe that the British are not good at understanding “foreign land”, largely because of the inward looking media, and this must really be considered one of the largest political reviews of the year. Apparently, according to Norman Smith, David Cameron is a hero for bombing hundreds of civilians, taking sides in the Civil War and leaving a country, Libya, in rack, ruin and without more than a semblance of government for 2012.

Not only has Libya been a main focal point of the year, but the continuing revolutions of power, the continuing issues with the UN and the Arab League, and the rumblings of soft power in Iran, Israel and Syria should really be addressed. However, even as Egypt sinks back into Civil War, the media reporting (BBC and others) are keen to only refer to Libya and the Arab spring as a victory for the West in educating and promoting democracy.

Europe
Europe also falls into the foreign affairs category, but for a British political review, it is one of the largest issues in the country to date. Despite the Conservatives taking us into Europe in the 80s, there is a definitive factionalism within the party that has pro, anti and on-the-fence European opinions. Those who are so vocal about unhappiness with the coalition (Tim Montgomery and Mark Pritchard MP for example) are also unhappy with Europe and have led the continuing attacks on coalition. Their attempts to destable the government as they are repaying the deficit have been with pointless, childish and ignorant attempts to call for referendums and withdrawal from Europe. most of the time the background bitching could be ignored, so it came as something of a surprise when David Cameron suddenly seemed to be slave to it.

Creating one of the largest divides in the coalition seen to date, the position of both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives became clearly outlined to the public. And of course, misers such as Nigel Farage leapt on their hobbyhorses about bendy bananas.

This is likely to continue as the Euro crisis continues, rather like a windup car with a lost wheel, swinging wildly all over the path.

In contrast, Charlie Brooker barely mentions Europe at all. This is where he found wanting, although there is comedy genius to be had from Berlusconi, he doesn’t even mention the horrendous spoonerism Merkozy that has been dominating the headlines for some weeks.

Money, money, money
And of course the economy remains in the headlines. Horrendous graphs of fluctuations resembling the Pyrenees show the continual scale of made up numbers influencing value and how much we can afford to feed ourselves on a monthly basis have appeared on a daily basis.

No opposition
Politically, the battles with foreign affairs, the spiking economy and the European destiny has dominated the actions of the Cabinet. The opposition seems to be between the coalition parties with Labour flagging behind in a poor third. This makes Norman Smith’s choice of location for his review, a race ground, even more obscure. If we were coming into an election year, like America, it would make a lot more sense. We would be looking at poll ratings, opinion polls, stories of success stories of failure and ultimately the dreaded first past the post.

However, politics in the UK has been dominated by corruption, scandal and disagreement, in the coalition parties alone!

It is difficult to look at the phone hacking scandal as anything less than a terrifying indicator of how embroiled our so-called free media is with the political classes. Charlie Brooker’s take on Rupert Murdoch is superb, but he really misses the point on the level at which politics is presented to society. The infiltration of key media figures such as Andy Coulson into number 10 had a damning effect on the public’s ability to trust and engage with the political classes.

Scaling up from the MPs expenses scandals of 2009, which is why yours truly got involved in politics in the first place, corruption within politics is peeling off layer after layer. However, nothing seems to be done to address it. It is uncovered, but it is not removed.

People like to see a head roll. After the MP’s expenses, electing a BNP and a UKIP MEP was seen as punishment to the political classes via democracy for their expensive scandals. However, people seem reluctant to follow up on the IPSA scandal of 2011, where they have failed to publish parliamentary expenses because it may bring MPs into disrepute, with quite the same vigour.

We see the same with phone hacking, a number of people have resigned, a couple of people have apologised, and a few committees standing around talking about it all have been established. This is not quite heads rolling. Rather, it is a superficial gloss over the fact that the media is still heavily involved with the political classes, that they dominate and maintain knowledge to the public and that this is done selectively at the politicians choosing. The Bell Pottinger scandal showed that if nothing else.

The issue with IPSA also highlights the fact that unless the newspaper chooses to run this as the lead story, no one will pay any attention.

Then we see even further levels of corruption in the police and the phone hacking scandal that are seemingly unaddressed as well. Hugh Grant and others, even the prosecuted journalists, refer to carrier bags full of cash being given to sergeants and inspectors for leaking information. Yet we have not seen any significant detriment to our police forces.

The lobbying scandal that brought down Liam Fox MP resulted in his resignation from the Cabinet, but he’s still an MP. How much would you like to bet that he is still pally with oil firms and waiting for his opportunity to return? This is even more reason why we need the ability to do away with MPs, and fire members of the House of Lords, who are currently being paid while they reside in prison for their own expenses fraud.

But all of this, the key political elements of 2011, is being ignored by both political reviews the BBC has produced. I also notice, rather sickeningly, with the Conservative highlights are being promoted on the BBC yet there is no equivalent in competition. Should we all bow down now at a shrine of David Cameron?