Throughout 2025, our brilliant contributors and columnists never failed to challenge and inform our outlook on the world. That's how we like it. So, as we say goodbye to 2025 and welcome in the New Year, we'd like to bring you some of their best writing. 

Back in May, when fresh-faced Zack Polanski was yet to be recognised as the biggest disruptor to the UK's politics since Nigel Farage, he set out his unapologetic stall to take "eco-populism" from the Green Party grassroots to the masses for The Independent. 

"It's not radical to say that corporations shouldn't profit from the water coming out of taps, or that extreme wealth ought to be taxed fairly – it's just that no one is willing to say it", said Mr Polanski. Well, now he is. And it seems to be working rather well...

As the Israel-Gaza conflict provoked a summer of mass demonstrations here in the UK and saw Palestine Action proscribed as a terrorist organisation, the surreality of it all struck environmentalist and author Jonathan Porritt, 75, arrested at the subsequent protests.

"I spent a lot of time looking around at all those holding identical signs ("I oppose genocide: I support Palestine Action"), and on one occasion burst out laughing at the absurd idea that these calm, predominantly old or middle-aged, middle-class citizens are now seen by our government as linked to or even the equivalent of members of al-Qaeda, the IRA, Boko Haram or the Wagner Group." 

Later in the year, our columnist Victoria Richards spoke out against M&S after it reportedly apologised for "distress" over a trans member of staff asking a teenage customer if she needed any help in its bra section.

"I only had one question: what on earth were they apologising for?", said Richards. "Had the person offering to help my 13-year-old daughter in the M&S undies department been trans, I would have had no problem with it – and crucially, neither would she. How do I know? I asked her." 

Times keep changing. In a warning of things to come, Jonathan Margolis argued that the age of the "free" internet is collapsing, as Snapchat set out plans to make users pay for storing old data. "As canny tech analysts have been saying in various forms since 1999, if you're not paying for something, you're not the customer – you're the product being sold."

And in a world in which the politics of love and desire continued to confuse and intrigue in equal measure, Rowan Pelling made the case that, like Florence Pugh, what women really want is an age gap to an older partner; Sophie Heawood pronounced that, like Prince William, what women really want is a great wife to run the show; and Olivia Petter concluded that, as Lily Allen may have mused, open marriages aren't for everyone.

How will you remember 2025? Did absurdity triumph in the end? Did common sense get a reprieve? Was everything as it seemed on first viewing? In any case, we can agree on a few facts: the century has turned 25, and there is much to celebrate. So let's start as we mean to go on: by wishing you all a wonderful 2026. Happy New Year! 

Cartoon by Dave Brown, for The Independent

In the spotlight

Palestine Action demonstrators should not be prosecuted for placards

By Jonathan Sumption

Surprise, surprise – Labour is reaping what it has sown

By Jeremy Corbyn

I'm with you, Meghan – no one should lecture you on how to deal with a problem parent

By Hannah Betts

I lost everything when my husband Jamal Khashoggi was murdered. Please, President Trump, help me get justice

By Hanan El-Atr Khashoggi

After Crumpsall, is anywhere in Britain safe for us Jews now?

By Howard Jacobson

'Treated like cattle': Readers reject calls for smarter airport dress

Maybe if the airlines didn't treat people like cattle, kept them informed, stopped herding people around and charging for every single thing they can these days… maybe then people would feel and possibly act just a little more civil in return.

Share your opinion and read the full debate here 

FEATURED COLUMNISTS: SARA AWAD

In Gaza, what we have lost is bigger than our hearts

Living in Gaza means living under the uncertainty of an easily-broken ceasefire while tending to wounds that bear witness to an inner battle that may be fought for many years to come. Read more

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The loudest Voices

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Regarding the manners of so-called "Gen Z". For the most part I'm pleasantly surprised when I interact with this cohort. I've found them to be mostly courteous and polite. Far more so I think than my generation was at that age.

RickC joins etiquette expert William Hanson in saluting the good manners of the coming generation, "5 ways manners changed forever in 2025"

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Rage bait is not a word. It is a phrase made up of two separate words.

TomHawk is perplexed by the 'word of the year': "She-volution: why 2025 was the year women's rage took centre stage"

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This alleged attack on Putin's palace shows that Trump will buy anything from Putin. When Trump was asked if there was any evidence of such an attack, Trump said: "We'll find out." That lack of evidence didn't stop him from buying into Putin's narrative and being upset with Zelensky though.

Real European concurs with Mark Almond's prognosis of Ukraine's woes, "This mysterious 'drone attack' shows paranoid Putin will never be a peacemaker"

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For a chance to have your opinions featured in future newsletters alongside other readers, register here.

"At The Independent, we've always believed journalism should do more than describe the world – it should try to improve it.

This Christmas, we're asking for your help again as we launch our new campaign with the charity Missing People – the SafeCall appeal.

Every year, more than 70,000 children in the UK are reported missing. The misery that follows – for the child, for the family, for the community – is often hidden. Too many of these young people have nowhere to turn when they need help most. SafeCall will change that. Our goal is to raise £165,000 to help Missing People launch this new, free service – designed with the input of young people themselves – offering round-the-clock support, advice and a route to safety."

Having problems with work, love, family or friends? Get in touch with...

How do I stick to my new year's resolutions without feeling like a failure?

Every year, I make a whole massive list of new year's resolutions that go something like this: Get fit, lose weight, be more sociable, find a girlfriend, be more cheerful, watch less TV and spend less time worrying about being unhappy. And every single year, I fail! How do you do it? How can I do it? I already feel like a failure and 2026 hasn't even started! Read more

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