Thursday, December 31, 2009

Ten Predictions for 2010

Time to hop a ride on the prediction bandwagon. I've locked the science of perspectives under the stairs and gone with my gut. Here we go:

1) As unlikely as it seems now, Labour will scrape back in. The return to more traditional social democratic politics pays, much to the consternation of Blairites and
Tom Harris MP.

2) The Greens will get Caroline Lucas elected in Brighton. Nigel Farage for UKIP eats into John Bercow's majority, but the speaker is safely re-elected. As for the BNP, the strong anti-fascist campaign sees Griffin's challenge to Margaret Hodge off by a comfortable margin.

3) It's a bitter sweet election for Respect. Salma Yaqoob is elected but George Galloway is not. As for the rest of the left, apart from a respectable showing for Dave Nellist in Coventry and one or two fair (by the far left's standards) results the son-of-No2EU barely registers on the electoral radar. Once again, lack of name recognition and campaigning profile makes its traditional negative contribution, though everyone will prefer to blame the squeeze the Labour vote puts on it.

4) The economy returns to weak growth, though from the perspective of the two and a half million unemployed it feels no different.

5) As companies and the public sector cut back, more workers are forced into industrial action to defend their jobs and/or existing working conditions. There will be no mass radicalisation resulting from this, but strike figures and trade union membership will be up by year's end.

6) The United Kingdom will still be united. A referendum on Scottish independence will not take place - with opinion tilting against independence this will be a (quiet) relief to many in the SNP.

7) The Afghan war will rumble on, though by year's end there will be more talk about talks. Neither will there be an attack on Iran by the US and UK, and despite more Israeli sabre rattling no threatened air strikes will be forthcoming - the perceived opposition of such moves by a global anti-war movement figures heavily in the decision-making.

8) All kinds of irrationalism and mumbo-jumbo will - depressingly - make more headway in 2010. Climate change denialism becomes more of an anti-establishment badge of honour among hard of thinking circles. This in turns provokes a more strident rationalism in liberal-left circles.

9) The Sheridan case finally comes to court. Whatever happens it will rub added venom into the festering sore that is the Scottish left.

10) In July, the
Posadas position on UFOs is spectacularly confirmed as emissaries from the Galactic Soviet land in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang. They immediately offer the crumbling Juche regime unconditional but critical support against US imperialism and its South Korean running dogs.

Nostradamus I ain't.

What do you think will happen in 2010?

No comments:

Post a Comment