1. Starting at home, with yet another boring prediction, the Coalition will last the whole year. Get used to it, Labourites. It ain’t going anywhere.
2. The Lib Dems will take a pounding in the local elections, especially in Scottish councils, where they will be wiped only for the saving grace that is a truly proportional electoral system. Predictably, it will all be dismissed, and the Lib Dems will accept it and carry on.
3. David Cameron will finally conduct a proper reshuffle, though it still won’t be particularly far reaching. Osborne isn’t going anywhere and neither is Michael Gove. Lansley may be moved if the NHS reforms pass successfully to give someone else a chance. He will definitely be removed if they fail. The Lib Dems have such a paucity of front bench talent that there is very little room for manouevre… but maybe Nick Clegg will at least get a real portfolio at last, now the “political reform” agenda has vanished.
4. Ed Miliband will remain Labour leader, in spite of generally underwhelming election results and another defeat to Boris in the London mayoral election.
5. In Europe, the Euro crisis will be resolved with a “treaty”. The treaty will not get the UK’s blessing, and the EU will proceed into a closer union without the UK, creating overwhelming calls for an in-out referendum. If it starts looking tempting, expect Labour to back the idea.
6. France will get a “Socialist” President as Sarkozy plunges to inevitable defeat.
7. Rick Santorum will win the Iowa caucuses, but Mitt Romney will be the Republicans nominee for President.
8. Barack Obama will squeak a narrow re-election against Mitt Romney.
9. The Democrats will either lose control of the Senate or it will be an exact 50-50 tie, with Joe Biden, VP, suddenly finding a reason to exist. The Democrats will not re-take the House, but it will be close. This disastrous deadlock will result in two more years of pathetic governance in the States.
10. Syria will continue to make a mockery of the West – and the uprising will eventually be brutally suppressed. Meanwhile, the rest of the Arab Spring becomes stillborn, and the tendency towards strong, authoritarian governments in the region will persist.
11. Iran will successfully navigate the year without there being any progress on disarmament, and there will be no military activity of any sort. However, the West will begin sounding the war-drums, and the useless public will buy it.
12. And all the while the schizophrenic public will continue to ignore the fact that Afghanistan has been, and will continue to be, a catastrophic failure. More lives will continue to be lost, though Obama will, mercifully, confirm a long, slow, drawdown over the next few years.

And the usual bonus prediction… Manchester City will win this year’s Premier League.

See you at the end of the year!

The AV referendum will pass

Oh dear. Totally wrong. I just thought maybe for once we’d be able to have a reasonable debate – but in the end it was extraordinarily lop-sided – and there will never again be a chance for electoral reform in the UK. Nice job.

The “Other” 2011 referendum – in Wales – will also succeed, but with a larger majority in favour.

Correct. But that was an easy one…

Following that, Welsh Labour will win. But perhaps not as big as they will hope. I predict an extremely close finish, with them just falling below the magic 31 seats for outright majority control.

Correct and then some. Extraordinary precision. Incredible insight. Labour won the election with 30 seats of 60. One seat short of that magic 31. I am very proud of this one – makes up for the AV disaster!

The Scottish Nationalists will lose power in Scotland’s May general election

OK, so maybe my Scottish politics is not very good compared to my Welsh. My thinking behind this one was that perhaps the rise of the Coalition in England would force Labour voters to return home as the only way to create some clear red water at the border.

Instead, the SNP have established themselves as an extremely credible and powerful electoral force. Whether they turn that into support for independence remains to be seen. But the Scots electorate is very happy with them, and I’m delighted that I got this one very wrong.

Meanwhile, in London, the Coalition will last the whole year, without too many hiccups, despite sluggish economic data.

That wasn’t very difficult, but it was right on every level. Shit economy, after all.

Somewhere during the year, the Liberal Democrats will hit another low in their post-2010 election opinion poll woes.

I could probably have proved this any way I liked, choosing any of the multiple pollsters. But the fair answer is to choose one barometer and stick to it. My weapon of choice is the ICM/Guardian monthly poll that’s been going since 1984.

Their lowest Lib Dem share in 2010 was 13% in December 2010. Their lowest Lib Dem share in 2011 was… 12%  in June 2011. Beautiful. I count that as a win!

In the post-May reshuffle, Nick Clegg will receive a real portfolio in a bid by David Cameron to shore up support for the coalition amongst demoralised Liberal Democrat MPs. Home Office, anyone?

Well, this one was wrong because there was no post-election reshuffle. Never mind.

Also to boost the Lib Dems, House of Lords reform (defined here as anything 80% or more elected), will pass the Commons, but die a sad death in the Lords itself.

I’m really not sure why I predicted this one now. House of Lords reform to make it elected wholesale will never happen. I should have trusted my standard instincts when it comes to serious political reform.

Looking abroad, Silvio Berlusconi will finally reach the end of his woeful Prime Ministerial career.

Another beauty. Bye bye Silvio.

Barack Obama will have a traumatic year: under fire from the hostile House of Representatives, a ceaseless war in Afghanistan, and unable to achieve anything of great significance. This will seriously damage him running into the pivotal 2012. And if that happens, expect Sarah Palin to run for the Presidency. Whether she gets the nomination, however, will have to wait till next year’s prediction…

Let’s try to digest that. Barack Obama has indeed had a terrible year. I knew it would be the case. The House has been the thorn in his side, and the disastrous Afghanistan still rumbles on with no progress and no sign of ending. At least he has ended the Iraq one.

But what I didn’t get right was the bonus Sarah Palin prediction, in spite of all that. Little did I realise that she actually has no intention of running for serious office again. It was all a sham to make money.

Finally, North Korea will come back to the negotiating table at long last. But will a deal be reached? Extraordinarily unlikely. Unless Kim Jong Il croaks it, and his son is, to everyone’s shock, slightly less of a lunatic than his father…

I’m going to count this as correct. Not necessarily because of the negotiating table thing… even though there was some movement in that direction a few months ago. But because I talked about Kim Jong Il croaking it – which turns out did happen!

So what’s that then…

• SPECTACULARLY CORRECT – 2
• SORT OF CORRECT – 5
• MOSTLY WRONG – 1
• EMBARRASSINGLY WRONG – 3

And I also got my bonus prediction of Man Utd to win the title correct, though that was easy.

So we all drop some clangers from time to time. And once again, they were because of either sheer naïveté or simply making a ludicrous prediction to sound good. But then again, some of the ones I did win also sounded a bit ludicrous at the time. Hmm.

Maybe I’m not that bad after all… but let’s face it, no one could have predicted the actual major events of the year – the Arab Spring, the phone-hacking scandal and the ceaseless decline in Europe and the US.

A fresh set of predictions tomorrow!

 … a front page which is nothing other than a contemptible and deliberately cynical lie… I can’t help but feel that the current situation – much debated at present – that the broadcast media should be regulated, while the print media is allowed to get on with it – is completely untenable.

Can you imagine if, at 10pm last night, the BBC News at 10 had asserted to the same degree of certainty that front page does, that it was Al Qaeda responsible for the attack? If they had been right, no doubt they would be paraded as a fine example of getting an early scoop. But if they’d got it wrong, they would soon discover the full fury of the rest of the media. Not to mention those other unimportant bodies like OFCOM and the BBC Trust.

And rightly so. After all, if a broadcast media organisation had been so sloppy, so brazen, so downright wrong in such a manner as to give people completely the wrong impression, and – worse – potentially inflame the state of race relations in the UK – then they would deserve the book and the whole of the British Library being thrown at them.

So why not the print media? Why, on Monday (not yet on Sunday) will the Sun say absolutely nothing about just how disgustingly and dangerously wrong they were with their Saturday front page? Why is it that no one at all will be able to hold them to account for it?

Why should it merely be that the answer is “if people don’t like it, they will stop buying it”? Don’t the people in such powerful positions as to be able to dictate public policy and influence the public debate have a responsibility to at least either get the basic facts right, or, if they aren’t in possession of those, not to speculate idly without having a scintilla of evidence to back up their wild assertions?

If nothing else, don’t they owe it to their own readership to at least try to get things right?

Apparently not.

The constant refrain during the Murdoch/News International hacking scandal has been “whatever we do, we want to preserve press freedom to self-regulate”. It’s just a tragic shame that it requires such an appalling incident as what happened in Norway to, once again – as if recent events have not been enough – illustrate just how misguided that opinion is.

A very misleading photo of some guy

One quick thought for you.

Labour, in Scotland, suffered a “shellacking” at the hands of the SNP.

That defeat was magnified to a very large extent by none other than the First Past The Post electoral system.

You know, that system most of them came out and backed.

But wait!

Scotland doesn’t have just FPTP. It has the joyous Additional Member System, allowing additional MPs to be distributed in accordance with the PROPORTIONAL preference of the electorate. And, even better, taking into account seats already won under FPTP, thus correcting for its distortion.

Hmm.

To recap. Labour, facing meltdown at the hands of the First Past The Post electoral system in Scotland, are rescued from utter disaster by a fair voting system, enshrined in proportional representation.

“Lord” Reid, your boys took a hell of a beating.

How do you like them apples, Iain?

But for now, more to get it down in writing than anything else, here comes my top 11 predictions for 2011.

1. The AV referendum will pass. Call me a hopeless optimist, but I believe Ed Miliband will drag the Labour Party, kicking and screaming, behind the campaign as a show of his authority and capacity for “change”. This will encourage the Lib Dems to give it their full support. It will scrape home. Just.
2. The “Other” 2011 referendum – in Wales – will also succeed, but with a larger majority in favour.
3. Following that, Welsh Labour will win. But perhaps not as big as they will hope. I predict an extremely close finish, with them just falling below the magic 31 seats for outright majority control.
4. The Scottish Nationalists will lose power in Scotland’s May general election, but they will only be replaced by an enfeebled Labour minority, who may struggle to find partners to get its legislation and budgets through.
5. Meanwhile, in London, the Coalition will last the whole year, without too many hiccups, despite sluggish economic data.
6. Somewhere during the year, the Liberal Democrats will hit another low in their post-2010 election opinion poll woes.
7. In the post-May reshuffle, Nick Clegg will receive a real portfolio in a bid by David Cameron to shore up support for the coalition amongst demoralised Liberal Democrat MPs. Home Office, anyone?
8. Also to boost the Lib Dems, House of Lords reform (defined here as anything 80% or more elected), will pass the Commons, but die a sad death in the Lords itself.
9. Looking abroad, Silvio Berlusconi will finally reach the end of his woeful Prime Ministerial career. Having said that, his replacement will hardly be any better.
10. Barack Obama will have a traumatic year: under fire from the hostile House of Representatives, a ceaseless war in Afghanistan, and unable to achieve anything of great significance. This will seriously damage him running into the pivotal 2012. And if that happens, expect Sarah Palin to run for the Presidency. Whether she gets the nomination, however, will have to wait till next year’s prediction…
11. Finally, North Korea will come back to the negotiating table at long last. But will a deal be reached? Extraordinarily unlikely. Unless Kim Jong Il croaks it, and his son is, to everyone’s shock, slightly less of a lunatic than his father…

As for who wins this year’s Premier League, alas, it’ll be no one other than Manchester United.

On January 1 2010, I made the following predictions:

1 – The Conservatives will win the General Election (which will be held in May) with a majority of approximately 50 seats.

Well, I got that wrong. I lost my bottle. After predicting for years (pre-blogging, alas) that it would be a hung parliament next time, I got carried away with continuous polls showing a Tory landslide. I should have stuck with my gut feeling.

2 – George Osborne will not be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer.

OK, that was always going to be a long shot. More in hope rather than expectation. I thought he might get a different post, a more strategic one, and instead Phillip Hammond would get the job. Moral of the tale: wild predictions are often wrong.

3 – Gordon Brown will be replaced as Labour Party leader by Ed Miliband.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. But no, that’s unfair. To me this ranks amongst my finest predictions ever. Best one since predicting Obama as next President in 2004. I just had a feeling that the Labour Party would turn to a “new” face, rather than David Miliband. I had been convinced Ed Miliband had the ability to win such a contest in 2007 at his conference speech. At least, I think it was 2007.

4 – Gordon Brown will get a job on the international stage and resign as an MP.

Wrong. I am really surprised that he is still an MP. Ex PMs just shouldn’t be in Parliament. Gordon Brown still doesn’t strike me as the type to overshadow the new leadership. I still think he will go. Perhaps the right opportunity hasn’t arisen yet…

5 – The new Tory administration will suffer a scandal of some kind. Yes, I know this is very vague, and a total cop out, but I can’t quite put my finger on it…

Well, I was half-right. By “scandal” I was, naturally, implying some sort of personal relationship issue. It was provided extremely quickly by David Laws and his questionable financial arrangements. But it wasn’t a Tory administration that provided it. Though on the other hand, it might as well be.

6 – The Tories will scrap the ID card, but questions will remain over whether the database behind the project actually disappears with it.

Half right again. It was a coalition government that scrapped the ID card, and it seems the whole database has gone too. In this case, I’m glad to be wrong. Good riddance.

7 – Obama will not only pass his healthcare reform bill, but will score a major political coup by passing comprehensive immigration reform, utterly dividing the Republican Party in the process.

Oh dear. Well, sort of half right. He did get healthcare reform – of a sort – but no immigration reform, more’s the pity. Instead, he went down to a thumping defeat. The Republican Party, however, is definitely divided. The mother of all splits is coming down the track with the Tea Party vs Traditional Republican clash.

8 – The Democrats will lose 30 seats in the House, and 5 seats in the Senate, worsening the already fractured relationship between Obama and an increasingly obstructive Republican minority.

Well, they lost 6 in the Senate, so pretty good here. But the House losses were twice as large as I thought. And I was spot on about the “increasingly obstructive Republican minority”. In fact, they’ve done nothing other than obstruct, and have had incredible success in the process. But they’re going to have to do try and do something with their shiny new House majority to prove they can do more than just generate soundbites.

9 – Australian PM Kevin Rudd will win the next federal election – a double dissolution – with a major landslide.

Back in January 2010, this looked nailed on. It couldn’t have been any better for the Australian Labor Party. The opposition were in disarray, Rudd was riding high in the polls, and the right circumstances were in place for Rudd to call a special “double dissolution” election, which would allow him the opportunity to make significant changes to the country. Instead, he bottled it, and ended up getting kicked out. The replacement leader managed to scrape home with the help of a new coalition, but whether she’ll build on that is anyone’s guess. Goes to show how important nerve is in politics…

10 – The Iranian crisis will either culminate in the death of Mirhossein Mousavi or there will be a popular revolution. That’s another cop out, I’m sorry, but either way I think this will be a significant year for the Iranian situation.

Moral of the tale here: steer clear of international situations you know nothing about.

Overall, not particularly bad. Lots of “half rights”. The biggest errors were when I let my hopes overrule my genuine expectations. Or when I just made a bizarre prediction for shits and giggles. But I’m so proud of my Ed Miliband prediction that I think I deserve some credit

But the less said about my prediction for Arsenal to win the Premier League, the better.

As a Lib Dem member, and someone who joined the party many years ago because of tuition fees, amongst other issues, which made the Liberal Democrats a truly distinctive choice in British politics, I thought I’d respond to your e-mail.

I fully supported the Lib Dems in 2010 as truly the only genuine alternative to the same old rubbish from the main two parties. So much time and effort committed. When I saw us surging in the polls, only for us to be disappointed on Election Day, it broke my heart.

The choice of our leadership to back the Browne Review turns my stomach. We have done nothing other than sell our policies down the river since we went into government. And all for what: an AV referendum that no one wants?

Yes, I know we didn’t “win” the election, but neither did the Tories. And neither did we have to put our MPs in Cabinet posts which would end up causing the greatest difficulty for our party. Witness again today Chris Huhne issuing yet more screeching u-turns on our policies on nuclear power.

Sorry “Nick”, but if the party is doing nothing other than back solutions which consistently appear to be Tory – the kind of thing David Cameron would have done anyway – then there really is no point in pretending to be a different party any more. Call a special conference to formalise the merger now, and those of us still with a conscience can reform as a genuine centre-left, social democratic party.

Regards

The Futility Monster

Yes. It is.

To me, the beauty of the American political system is in its enforced renewal. Every two years, the populist House has to be re-mandated. It is this very nature that makes it populist. Meanwhile, their ultimate leader and national figurehead, the President, gets a little longer, but is not allowed to stick around for more than eight years, lest he (not yet a she) start to get ideas above his station, and become a little too attached to the trappings of office.

There aren’t many other Western political systems that have such rigorous time and term limits on everything. The rest of us, especially Westminster inspired systems, have a lot more flexibility regarding the calling of elections. And that’s where the problem begins.

Take Australia. In January, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd looked in an extremely powerful position. The opposition had just replaced its leader, in a fractious contest that split the party down the middle. His personal approval ratings were sky high. The opposition controlled Senate had just blocked a key plank of his legislation – environmental regulation – for the second time. This opened the door for Rudd to engage in some constitutional jiggery-pokery: a “double dissolution” election, which, most probably, would have resulted in a sweeping Labour victory in both chambers of the Parliament.

Instead, he decides to tough it out. And then sees everything go wrong, getting chucked out and replaced by Julia Gillard.

Julia Gillard doesn’t want to repeat Rudd’s mistake. While the polls see her arrival as positive, and the Labor Party improves its standing, she decides to seize upon the honeymoon and go straight to that election. The net result: Labor on the brink, courtesy of a terrible, back-biting campaign, and an opposition that had had eight months to prepare for this very moment.

Then there’s Gordon Brown: clinging on by his fingernails till the very last moment. If only he’d gone straight away, like so many commentators (including me) thought he should. His first job, after accepting the invitation of the Queen to be the Prime Minister, should have been to say, “And now I’d like an election to mandate this change”. He didn’t. He didn’t want to be one of the shortest ever PMs. And yet all the omens were good for them. Tories still not ready. Old election boundaries. Honeymoon period. The rest is history.

Recent evidence seems to be that politicians are not very good at choosing the timing of elections. They either worry that they’re about to sign their own death warrant, or are hopelessly optimistic about what’s lurking around the corner.

Since we should only trust politicians as much as is necessary, we should do them all a favour and back the idea of fixed election dates. Let’s take the stress off them, and in return, remove a major element of political fiddling from the system.

Though I still think five years is too long…

Gohmert in better times...

On fairly regular occasions, I watch The Daily Show. Now, it can hardly be described as an unbiased source of “news”, but satire always has a stinging level of truth behind it. More than mere truthiness.

Whenever I watch, there is invariably a segment where host Jon Stewart plays clips of US politicians, either delivering sermons in the House or the Senate, or holding forth on Fox or some other news network. The clips are usually of someone talking utter bullshit, saying something truly outrageous and being allowed to get away with it.

One recent example was the case of Representative Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican who appears to have no brain whatsoever. He talked up the ludicrous notion that terrorists were coming to America to give birth, so that their offspring could claim US citizenship under the 14th Amendment, only to return decades later as a legitimate citizen and blow themselves up.

Where this batshit crazy man got this idea from no one really knows. And when challenged to give any proof to his assertion, he just got mad instead.

Allowing lunatics like him to be elected will always remain the great flaw of democracy. But what concerns me a little about America is that he is by far not the only example. Day after day, week after week, on The Daily Show, more and more politicians are put in the limelight displaying absolutely zero intelligence whatsoever.

While Britain too has its fair share of politicians who arguably lack the brainpower to stand up and make a coherent, logical speech, backed by evidence as they see it, it seems to me that the US has a lot more of them, despite actually having fewer politicians at the national level. From Michele Bachman to Jim Bunning. And plenty more.

It seems like a harsh question to ask, but there is definitely something different about American democracy versus British democracy. I’m not saying that our voters look for intelligence in their politicians either, but for whatever reason, there is a cultural difference. US politicians have historically won elections by being more “one of us” – despite not being “one of us” in the least. Whereas in Britain, historically it has not always been like that, though we’re heading in that direction.

For those who disagree, let’s hear it. I raise the question simply because I’m genuinely interested…

She bravely toppled her leader and called that election. That's the way to do it, Gordon.

It’s amazing just how much the Australian election has turned on its head. At the start of the year, it looked like Kevin Rudd, former PM, could do no wrong. So much so that I made a bold prediction: that he would win another landslide later in the year in a “double dissolution” election.

Now, the words “former PM” sort of give the game away about how wayward that one was.

But now it’s the case of the Welsh girl made, not good, but Aussie, versus a climate-change denying, right-wing firebrand. One of those, what we lefty types like to call, paleoconservatives.

And the polls put it on a knife-edge.

Why should we in the West care? Oz is a long way away, after all. Most of us would only care if it’s going to affect our plans to retire there, or go on a two year jaunt picking grapes on a “working holiday” visa.

I humbly suggest that, to those of us bothered about global issues like environmentalism, and economic regulation, it really does matter who gets elected. It would, for a liberal leftie like me, be preferable to see the Labor Party win, in the vain hope that they will stick to their guns and push hard for wider, faster, and deeper agreement on carbon reduction. The more voices in that camp, the easier agreement will become.

Perhaps that’s a little naive, though. After all, too many nations, especially nations as significant on the world stage for their mineral production like Australia, are only in it for their national interest. And that is what in the end did for Kevin Rudd. He wanted to be bold, and ended up battling against the vested interests so much that in the end he backed down, and looked a spent force. His replacement, Julia Gillard, learning the lesson, is not quite so strong on the issue; especially in the face of a rival who came to the fore exactly because of it.

The election will be close, but I’m going to stick to my guns. Labor will win. No landslide though.

And the reason? Probably because of these.

In modern politics, leader ratings are just as important as the party ratings. All things being equal – as they are here – I believe the people will plump for the leader they just “like” more.

It’s going to be a good test of the theory anyway. Watch and learn.