New Year’s Eve: London fireworks event to go ahead despite weather concerns – live

Key events
Here are some of the latest images of New Year’s Eve celebrations from around the world.
Time for another quiz while we wait for midnight to creep across the globe? Why not. How about tackling Patrick Barkham’s environment quiz of the year?
London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks event will go ahead
London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks event will go ahead at midnight despite weather concerns, PA Media reports.
Much of the UK faces heavy rain and strong winds, and even snow in some parts, leading to widespread disruption. Many planned have been cancelled, including high-profile outdoor celebrations in Edinburgh.
London mayor Sadiq Khan said:
I’m really excited about the London New Year’s Eve fireworks, the biggest fireworks taking place anywhere across Europe. Hundreds of thousands of fireworks, great light display but also a great soundtrack tonight as well.
You can find the latest weather warnings for the UK here.
In the UK, recently installed Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has issued a new year message. In the short clip, she says:
Happy new year. Like all of you, I am looking forward to a 2025 that is full of hope, security and prosperity.
The Conservative party is also going through a period of change. This process of renewal will be a long term project. Things may be bumpy along the way, but the party I now lead is going to do things differently. Watch the space.
Happy New Year! 🎉💥
I’m excited for 2025 and the challenges ahead. The renewal of the Conservative Party is underway.
Our country needs us to get this right. Under new leadership, we are committed to doing things differently, focusing on real solutions to the challenges we… pic.twitter.com/L3EOE5j0rh
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) December 31, 2024
The UK prime minister Keir Starmer is expected to issue a New Year’s Eve statement later tonight.
The United Arab Emirates has just passed into 2025. In recent years the seven emirates have often competed to put on the most extravagant displays, with attempts to set world records for the number of drones used simultaneously. Earlier this evening the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, was lit up ahead of the celebrations.
One of the main reasons for having a live blog on New Year’s Eve is we get lots of great pictures and video footage of firework displays, and here are some clips from Sydney, a city that always prides itself on putting together a tremendous show.
Those of you outside the UK may not necessarily be familiar with Susie Dent, who is the absolute queen of the English language on popular quizshow Countdown, and on her social media often posts an obscure word of the day.
SPOILERS: it is usually an obscure old word that nevertheless somehow manages to be incredibly relevant to the politics of today without her having to explicitly make her point.
Anyway, she has just posted her word for New Year’s Eve, which is “respair”. Dent says:
Word of the day is one I keep posting at the end of the year, hoping its time will come. “Respair”, from the 16th century, is fresh hope, and a recovery from despair. Here’s to a few drops of respair in 2025.
If you are in the mood for a bit of political context in the UK as we count down towards midnight, let me point you towards our Politics Weekly review of the year, featuring my colleagues John Harris, Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey.
France’s president Emmanuel Macron has given a traditional New Year’s Eve address to the nation on television.
In it, Macron recalled that during 2024 France had hosted not only the Olympic and Paralympic Games, but also held events marking the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings, and the reopening of the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral.
However, France’s president conceded that his decision to call early parliamentary elections in June 2024 created more political instability in the country.
Macron said: “The dissolution caused more divisions in the Assembly than solutions for the French people.
“If I decided to dissolve, it was to give you back your voice, to regain clarity and avoid the threat of immobility. But lucidity and humility demand we acknowledge that at this time this has produced more instability than serenity, and I take full responsibility for that.”
I am not one to judge, after all I am the person working on New Year’s Eve doing the live blog, but if you are reading this then over the next couple of hours I was going to – as well as bring you lots of pictures of fireworks – make some suggestions of ways to help your evening pass with some fun and jollity.
And quizzes are a great way.
So here is my first quiz suggestion of the evening, why not try Séamas O’Reilly & Dara O’Reilly’s quiz on how much news you remember from 2024?
It has just turned midnight in Pakistan. Earlier in Karachi, as is traditional, much was made of the final sunset of 2024 in the country, with people posing for photos against the background of the dipping sun. It always makes for a very photogenic scene.