Well, Iain Dale did one, so have other Tory bloggers. The Guardian had some of its columnists do a nice video on the topic. I thought I’d follow suit and other some speculative and pointless predictions for the year ahead in the political world:
1) The 2010 UK general election will be held in May to coincide with local elections, rather than earlier as speculated.
2) The economy will begin to recover as the Chancellor predicted, though actual growth will be less than Darling’s projection. Unemployment will not hit the 3 million mark.
3) The 2010 general election will result in a hung parliament, with the Tories as the largest party – short of a majority by 30 seats. The Lib Dems will hold the balance of power and refuse to prop up the Labour Government. Coalition negotiations will fail due to differences on electoral reform and the allocation of cabinet positions. David Cameron will emerge leading a minority government.
4) Green Party leader Dr. Caroline Lucas will win the parties first seat in Brighton. Ukip and the BNP will fail to win any Westminster seats, but will draw votes away from the Conservatives and Labour respectively.
5) Cameron’s control of his party will be very weak when in government, with newly elected backbenchers being significantly to the right of him. Either the minority government will fall before the end of 2010, with another election to be held; or there will be a leadership challenge.
6) At some point in 2010, Palestine will step up its attacks on Israel. When Israel defends itself we shall see the usual rabble-protests in the UK. The FarLeft-Islamist alliance will become more vocal and agitative as the year goes on.
7) A Far Left or Islamist candidate will win a sabbatical position in the University of Birmingham Guild of Students elections. The EEO position will again fall to the radical rather than the moderate candidate. One of the present sabbs will seek reelection and win.
8) Brown will not resign immediately in opposition but continue until the party conference season before being forced out. Jack Straw will be elected leader (“safe pair of hands”/”caretaker”) will Alan Johnson as deputy. Ed Balls to become shadow chancellor.
9) Universities will negotiate a rise in tuition fees to £5,000 p.a. Applications for university places will fall to a 5-year low, with youth unemployment rising again before the end of the year.
10) Obama’s healthcare reforms will be passed in a greatly compromised form. In the midterm elections the Democrats will lose control of at least one of the Houses of Congress to the Republicans.
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I’ve just read through them a second time and realised they aren’t very cheerful… hopefully I’ll be proven wrong on at least some of them. I’ve also realised that I’ve cheated and written far more than the initially promised 10 – seems I wanted to flesh out the Future History. I haven’t checked Political Betting for odds on any of these, so I’ve no idea how plausible some of them are – If anyone does fancy a little wager, get in touch 
Oh yeah, and happy new year.
comradenash
/ December 31, 2010So then, how did we do?
“1) The 2010 UK general election will be held in May to coincide with local elections, rather than earlier as speculated.” – Bang on! May 5th, though we did have to put up with further speculation of a snap election back in March first. 1/1
“2) The economy will begin to recover as the Chancellor predicted, though actual growth will be less than Darling’s projection. Unemployment will not hit the 3 million mark.” Again, as far as I am aware, bang on. The data for the last quarter of 2009 (released a month after my projections) showed a return to growth, with subsequent quarters showing positive figures also. Unemployment hasn’t skyrocketed… yet. 2/2
“3) The 2010 general election will result in a hung parliament, with the Tories as the largest party – short of a majority by 30 seats. The Lib Dems will hold the balance of power and refuse to prop up the Labour Government. Coalition negotiations will fail due to differences on electoral reform and the allocation of cabinet positions. David Cameron will emerge leading a minority government.” Part one bang on, albeit quite predictable in the end. Tory shortfall also predictable. Interesting that the Lib Dems did indeed spurn Labour (I knew nothing of Clegg’s personal preferences at this point, and like most of the country had never heard of the Orange Book. As with pretty much everyone else I was suprised with how readily a full coalition was formed. Amusingly, electoral reform is one of the issues I believe the Lib Dems gave up on too easily. They could have been more mercenary in their coalition negotiations and got a lot lot more. They did get cabinet positions, plenty of junior ones at least… Call this one a half-point. 2.5/3
“4) Green Party leader Dr. Caroline Lucas will win the parties first seat in Brighton. Ukip and the BNP will fail to win any Westminster seats, but will draw votes away from the Conservatives and Labour respectively.” – Correct (the second part, about votes, is a little too vague really. For absolute seat numbers I was on it (though my grammer – *party’s* – was clearly off… 3.5/4
“5) Cameron’s control of his party will be very weak when in government, with newly elected backbenchers being significantly to the right of him. Either the minority government will fall before the end of 2010, with another election to be held; or there will be a leadership challenge.” Built on the false premise of an earlier incorrect prediction. Utterly wrong. 3.5/5
“6) At some point in 2010, Palestine will step up its attacks on Israel. When Israel defends itself we shall see the usual rabble-protests in the UK. The FarLeft-Islamist alliance will become more vocal and agitative as the year goes on.” I’ll give myself half a point for this – noone can deny that the Trots are definately at it again, even if their usual trendy issue has taken a back seat.. for now.. 4/6
“7) A Far Left or Islamist candidate will win a sabbatical position in the University of Birmingham Guild of Students elections. The EEO position will again fall to the radical rather than the moderate candidate. One of the present sabbs will seek reelection and win.” A mixture, but then a mixed prediction. Half a point. 5/7
“8) Brown will not resign immediately in opposition but continue until the party conference season before being forced out. Jack Straw will be elected leader (“safe pair of hands”/”caretaker”) will Alan Johnson as deputy. Ed Balls to become shadow chancellor.” Wrong wrong wrong. No points. 5/8
“9) Universities will negotiate a rise in tuition fees to £5,000 p.a. Applications for university places will fall to a 5-year low, with youth unemployment rising again before the end of the year.” Half a point, but my grim prediction was on the wrong side of a grimmer reality. £9k, not £5k… great. 5.5/9
“10) Obama’s healthcare reforms will be passed in a greatly compromised form. In the midterm elections the Democrats will lose control of at least one of the Houses of Congress to the Republicans.” Correct, if comfortably vague in the first place. One full point.
Final score: 6.5 out of 10. Or a comfortable 2:1 in University terms.
Ukipboy
/ January 2, 2011On point 5 i think you can give your self either 1/2 or 1/4 a point because many of the newly elected mps are to the right of him and there are mutters of rage going on which could led them to block the eu treaty referendum bill as rhey dont think it goes far enough. Also on lib dem voting system i dont think they could of if they had cameron would have had to pull the plug on adeal as it would be too much, also i think dave gave away to much he only allowed a full referendum on it after it was reported that labour were going to give them av with a referendum on pr afterwards which turned out to be false, up to that stage mps were only going to vote on weather to have a referendum
comradenash
/ January 3, 2011That most of the newly elected Tory MPs would be to the right of Cameron was pretty much known at that point (December 2009) though – candidates had been selected in pretty near all seats, or at least shortlists were known. Thus this bit doesn’t really count as “prediction” and it would be rather cheating to award points. “5)” Specifically predicts a fall of a minority government, and a second election or leadership challenge – all of which became much less likely the moment a full coalition was formed.
“if they had cameron would have had to pull the plug on adeal as it would be too much” – concerning Lib Dem bargaining power over AV/PR – effectively the premise of prediction 3); the Lib Dems holding out for more, and the Tories saying “no”.
History is only inevitable in hindsight.
Care to give us some of your political predictions for 2011? Chuck ‘em under the comments of that post, for the benefit of my other reader.