JSPrice People of the Year: Coleen Rooney and Dominic Grieve

Coleen Rooney and Dominic Grieve

Looking back, 2019 has been a funny year. For me personally, it has meant two house moves, job changes and watching some unforgettable concerts. But in the outside world - or the UK anyway - it can only be summed up by Brexit and Boris Johnson. At this time of the year, I usually review the past 52 weeks and conclude with who I think is deserving of my Person of the Year accolade (no prizes, I'm afraid). In previous years, the decisions were easy, but for 2019, I found it difficult without even thinking about the nonsense around Brexit and the recent general election.

TIME Magazine's Person of the Year is Greta Thunberg, the teenage environmental campaigner who travelled across continents in an attempt to inspire fellow young people and world leaders to take global warming seriously. Thunberg's instant rise to fame has been admirable to say the least, but her challenge to convince sceptic yet powerful governments in Brazil, China and the United States is a long way from being accomplished. And I'm not so sure the message Thunberg is conveying correctly reflects the current climate change political situation. Her "how dare you" speech was five years too soon, for instance. If anything, I praise her team, working behind the scenes, to make her the star she is today.

Having trawled through the news events over the past 12 months, I couldn't decide on two people to by my Person of the Year - one couldn't be any closer to the political drama and the other couldn't be any further away. I shall start with the latter because, actually, the 'scandal' shook the celebrity world and single-handedly distracted many of us from the former. Of course, I'm talking about Coleen Rooney. I don't know anyone else who has done that in 2019 and for that, she deserves every recognition.

Rebekah Vardy (Image: The Independent)

Rooney basically attracted the headlines for being 'Wagatha Christie'. Somewhat casually, she released a statement on social media to respond to some of the tabloid stories released weeks previous. The sources of these stories came from Rooney's private Instagram account to which no journalist has access. So who was the culprit? Well, Rooney, in Miss Marple fashion, had her suspicions of who the guilty party was and decided to unfollow all but one of her followers and posted some hoax stories. When those hoax stories were published in The Sun, Rooney solved the mystery and revealed it was Rebekah Vardy 'whodunnit'.

To those not into the world of football WAGs, Coleen Rooney is married to England's current record goal scorer Wayne, while Rebekah Vardy is married to Jamie, currently at Leicester City. WAGs were notoriously known for following their boyfriends and husbands to international matches, and the tabloids would have a vested interests in their antics on non-match days. I vividly recall their infamous outings during the 2006 World Cup which reportedly distracted the England team to progress further than what they did.

Things have since calmed down and the WAGs' reputation has soothed somewhat. To be quite frank, it is now at a point where the tabloids have run out of things to say about them apart from reporting odd sightings in restaurants. Now, the footballers are more famous than their wives and girlfriends.  Wayne Rooney has retired for a while and yet Coleen probably remains arguably the most famous and active WAG, with Vardy a close second, making their rivalry that more juicy for the media if they have a little squabble.

Normally, Rooney's 'Wagatha Christie' statement would not have been hyped as much as it did when it first broke. But it was covered by every national broadcaster, and as a result, The Sun initially deleted stories and a red-faced Vardy attempted to vigorously deny selling stories to the newspaper in question, even if fellow WAGs suggest she is 'The Secret WAG' columnist for the title's Sunday edition (something Vardy also denies). The story was unforgettable and, regardless of whether Vardy did it or not, it provided us a welcome distraction from the political madness, so for that Coleen Rooney, we thank you.

My second Person of the Year is based on Brexit. I suppose it had to be, as there was enough talk about it these past 12 months. It's difficult not to reflect on this without giving an individual some recognition for their part, and I truly believe that Dominic Grieve deserves it, over Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings who have done more than enough to steer the debate to where they want it to be.

Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings (Image: Financial Times)

Grieve became a Conservative MP for Beaconsfield in 1997, when the Tories suffered a massive defeat in the polls to Tony Blair's Labour. But Grieve has been a Conservative member since the late 1970s to early 80s, a devout lifelong Tory, you may argue. His time as an MP for the party he was part of for around 40 years ended suddenly in September when his whip was removed, simply because he voted against Boris Johnson's led EU withdrawal agreement. He was among a handful of MPs who were stripped of an organisation they'd been members for years, including fellow veterans Ken Clarke, Philip Hammond and Nicholas Soames.

With the Tories losing MPs as a result of this type of ditching, as well as no 'Brexit deadlock', a general election was called, which was a test to these politicians' loyalties. Most of them decided not to run for Parliament again, yet still show their support for the Tories, while others decided to either defect to another party or run as an Independent candidate, including David Gauke and Rory Stewart (the latter as Mayor of London in May 2020). But among those Independents, it is Grieve who stood out for me.

It doesn't matter what politics you endorse, it is unjust to cancel someone's membership because they 'rebelled' on a contentious subject area. It must have been a big call from Grieve to run for Beaconsfield again, and compete against the Tories in the election just gone. Sadly, Grieve came second in the constituency he represented for 22 years. Beaconsfield chose party over politician and he didn't hold on to his seat.

Grieve remained dignified throughout the campaign and always respected the decision for his membership to be unfairly taken off him. I hope he continues to shine his principles in a positive light for years to come, even if it means being a Tory again post-Johnson.

If we can learn anything from Rooney and Grieve, it is that we should trust our own instincts, be happy and prioritise on our principles over what others believe. 2020 will pose fresh challenges as well as bringing forward the obstacles we faced in 2019. More now than ever must we all find our inner peace and be satisfied with the decisions we've made because they are ours, and ours alone.