United Kingdom

In July a scandal that had been smoldering since 2005 broke out in full flame when the News of the World" class="md-crosslink">News of the World, one of the flagship newspapers of Rupert Murdoch’s News International media empire, ceased publication after it became clear that a number of the paper’s reporters and editors had engaged in or condoned the illegal hacking of telephone voice mails of some 4,000 Britons, including a child murder victim, the families of soldiers killed while serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, celebrities, politicians, and the British royal family. An earlier investigation had failed to reveal the extent of these violations of privacy (prompting later charges of law enforcement ineptitude and corruption) but led to the resignation of the editor of News of the World, Andy Coulson, in 2007. It did not prevent him from becoming the communications chief for Cameron when he took office, however. When the scandal began to grow, in January 2011 Coulson stepped down. By the middle of July, in addition to the shuttering of News of the World, the scandal had resulted in the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, the politically powerful chief executive officer of News International, and in the withdrawal of Murdoch’s bid to buy a controlling share of the BSkyB satellite television channel. It also brought about the convening of a number of special parliamentary hearings and commissions.

The 2011 riots, the European sovereign debt crisis, and Cameron’s veto of changes to the Lisbon Treaty

On the night of August 6 a different sort of firestorm broke out when a protest against the killing of a young man by police earlier in the week erupted in widespread rioting in the North London area of Tottenham. In the succeeding days, riots, looting, and arson, mostly by young people, escalated wildly and became the worst rioting that the capital had seen in decades. The riots spread not only to other areas of Greater London but also to other British cities including Liverpool, Birmingham, and Bristol. Largely as a result of the increased deployment of police, however, the riots abated quickly. In the ensuing months, legal authorities used video footage of the events to arrest looters.

London riots of 2011Police engaging rioters and looters in London's Camden borough, 2011.hughepaul

Although the United Kingdom remained outside of the euro zone, it was anything but unaffected by the events of the European sovereign debt crisis triggered by Greece’s financial collapse in 2009. Because many of Britain’s principal trading partners were euro-zone members, their economic woes impacted directly on the already sluggish economy of a Britain struggling mightily to reduce its deficit and combat unemployment.

Cameron created controversy in December 2011 when he effectively vetoed changes to the Lisbon Treaty (negotiated at an EU summit) that would have increased economic integration among the EU countries and imposed sanctions on members that surpassed an agreed-upon deficit limit. His actions strained the Conservatives’ coalition partnership with the Liberal Democrats and were criticized by Deputy Prime Minister Clegg, who called them “bad for Britain,” as well by French President Sarkozy, who said there were now two Europes—one that wanted “more solidarity between its members and more regulation” and another that was “attached only to the logic of the single market.”

The 2012 London Olympics, Julian Assange’s embassy refuge, and the emergence of UKIP

Britain was the centre of world pomp and pageantry in 2012 not just because of the festive celebration of the 60th anniversary of Elizabeth II’s ascent to the throne but because of London’s hosting of the Summer Olympic Games, which, despite initial concerns about inadequate security, were widely regarded as a smashing success. Then in mid-August 2012 the British government took issue with Ecuador’s granting of political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who had taken refuge in that country’s embassy in London after exhausting appeals under the British legal system to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges.