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Well folks, we are reaching the end of 2020.
The year the government was forced to tell people how to live their life, how long to wash their hands, how many households could meet.
And a year in which we lost too many loved ones before our time.
So I can imagine that there will be many people who will be happy to say goodbye to the sadness of 2020.
But just before doing so, I want to remind you that this was also the year in which we rediscovered a spirit of unity, of community.
It was a year in which we hit pans to celebrate the courage and self-sacrifice of our NHS staff and nursing home workers.
A year in which workers did everything they could to keep the country moving in the biggest crisis we’ve faced for generations: store workers, transportation personnel, pharmacists, emergency services, everyone, whatever.
We saw a renewed spirit of volunteering as people delivered food to the elderly and vulnerable.
And again and again, as new waves of the virus had to be fought, we saw people coming together in their determination, our determination, to protect the NHS and save lives.
Putting their lives, their lives, on hold.
Buying precious time for medicine to provide the answers, and it has.
In 2020, we have seen British scientists not only produce the world’s first effective treatment for the disease, but only in recent days has a beacon of hope been lit in the Oxford laboratories.
A new room temperature vaccine that can be produced cheaply and on a large scale,
And that literally offers a new lease of life to people in this country and around the world.
And with each blow that is thrown at the arm of every elderly or vulnerable person, we are changing the odds, in favor of humanity and against Covid.
And we know that we still have a tough fight ahead of us for weeks and months, because we face a new variant of the disease that requires new vigilance.
But as the sun rises tomorrow in 2021, we have the certainty of those vaccines.
He pioneered a UK that is also free to do things differently, and if necessary better, than our friends in the EU.
Free to make trade deals around the world.
And free to advance our ambition to be a scientific superpower.
From biosciences to artificial intelligence,
And with our world leading wind and battery technology, we will work with partners around the world,
Not just to address climate change, but to create the millions of high-skilled jobs this country will need not just this year, 2021, as we recover from Covid, but for years to come.
This is an amazing time for this country.
We have our freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it.
And I think it will be the overwhelming instinct of the people of this country to come together as one UK – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, working together to express our values around the world.
Leading the G7 Climate Change Summit and COP 26 in Glasgow,
And an open, generous, outward-looking, internationalist and free trade global Britain, campaigning for 12 years of quality education for every girl in the world.
2021 is the year we can do it,
And I think that 2021 is, above all, the year that we will finally do those everyday things that now seem lost in the past.
Bathed in a rosy glow of nostalgia, going to the pub, concerts, theaters, restaurants, or just holding hands with our loved ones in the usual way.
We are still a long way from that, difficult weeks and months ahead.
But we can see that luminous sign that marks the end of the journey, and more importantly, we can see with increasing clarity how we are going to get there.
And that’s what gives me so much confidence about 2021.
Happy New Year!
