The Two-Thousands – the decade of change.

So what should we call the first decade of the new century? The “naughties”, the “zeros”? Nope, neither. To me, “naughties” sounds frivolous, somehow nostalgic and I doubt many of us will look back with any fondness. The “zeros” suggests nothing happened and that, my friends, is just not true.

I think we’ll look back at the decade as the decade when everything changed.

On September 11th, 2001, I was in London’s Docklands at an international defence exhibition. Early afternoon, rumours started to spread of the attacks on New York. I talked to subdued colleagues as we stared, G&T in hand, towards Canary Wharf, wondering whether it would be next. Most were dismissive of the implications, but I wasn’t. I remember telling themthat this would change the world.

It did.

It changed our perception of Islam, making one of World’s most peaceful and culturally rich religions synonymous with terrorism. It led directly to the bombings in London and the airline bomb plots which changed the way we travel. It led to the Prevention of Terrorism Act which has made us all terrorists unless we prove otherwise.

It led to the invasion of Afghanistan and gave Bush the excuse to finish what his father couldn’t in Iraq. They tried to convince us of the existence WMDs to justify a regime change that was really about usurping oil resources for US megacorps. They made a liar of a Prime Minister who was desperate to appease Bush, and who then retired when the going got tough; leaving us with a character-less Scot - unelected and unelectable - to preside over the World’s financial crisis.

The tragic murder of Sara Payne and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann made us aware of networks of organised paedophiles but the case of Shannon Matthews in 2008 shocked us and changed the way we think of Britain. The media attention in the deprived estate in Dewsbury gave us a glimpse into the lives and attitudes of Britain’s underclass and how far they would go to sustain their alcohol and drug needs when their benefits were not enough. In 2002, two schoolgirls went missing in Soham, Cambridgeshire. We learnt that they’d been murdered by their school’s caretaker aided by their classroom assistant. The failure of local authorities to use existing procedures to check the killer’s background resulted in legislation that makes us all paedophiles unless we prove otherwise.

It was the decade when we worshipped the cult of celebrities. When we became obsessed with watching freak shows disguised as talent competitions, and gawped at nobodies and has-been celebrities in jungles and padded cells.

Did 9/11 cause the financial crisis? Not directly, but it was one of several butterflies that flapped their wings. With huge funds committed to funding the retaliation for 9/11, unstable oil prices, interest rates at sustained lows around the world and massive western investment pouring into China, the markets struggled to make the returns demanded by their investors. Risks were taken, and more and more elaborate ways of hedging risk were devised until the banks lost control of the risks they were taking. Banks across the world thought they could make more by lending to those who simply couldn’t afford it. They insured and traded risks as commodities until this fragile market began to unwind in the US mortgage market. Within months, the world found itself on the brink of economic collapse. Banks stopped lending to each other and to customers and countries went bankrupt. Businesses collapsed, shops closed and only massive, unprecedented intervention by central banks averted catastrophe, but only by condemning us to years of payback through further deterioration in public services, massive unemployment and high taxation.

But was there any positive change?

Peace came to Northern Ireland as republicans astutely changed their tactics from bombing to democracy. Attitudes changed to the damage we are doing to our planet, and we are gradually changing out ways to conserve and protect. Slowly, too slowly perhaps.

The internet has changed our lives in so many ways. We live our lives online in virtual, social communities. We buy, learn, trade and sustain relationships in the communities and we can all broadcast our opinions, thoughts and minute-by-minute actions to virtual friends.

Historians will look back on the two-thousands – my choice to describe the decade - as the decade when everything changed. Some changes were good, many were bad; but I, for one, am glad they are over.