Thursday, December 23, 2010

Predictions for 2010: How Did I Do?

Making bold predictions for the year ahead is always a risky thing to do; but a good laugh to look back on what you thought might be the case. So here are mine taken from the dying days of 2009 ...

1. Norwich City will be promoted to the Championship, and it will be through one of the automatic places - Spot on; full marks with this one.

2. David Cameron will be Prime Minister with an overall Conservative majority and will do so with a swing and a parliamentary result that defies all predictions and re-ignites the debate over voting reform. His new cabinet will look strikingly like his Shadow Cabinet; Gove, Fox, Lansley, Osbourne, Grayling and Hague will all keep their positions in government. The bigger shake-up will be at the middle and junior ranks. Chloe Smith will become a government minister. Well, a more mixed bag here; what a laugh! Cameron is indeed PM and there is indeed a debate over the voting system but without the use of an overall majority. I felt we'd win by around 20 on 36-37% and this ignite the demand for reform. Now we have a coalition and an AV referendum. The cabinet does look similar and everybody except Grayling have taken their Shadow Portfolio into government. I said Smith would be a Minister - and she's a whip. Overall not bad going.

3. Gordon Brown will not be Leader of the Opposition come next New Years Eve; he will quit in the hours that follow the General Election and in the next few weeks he will also stand down as an MP prompting the first by-election of the new parliament. David Milliband, Alan Johnson and Harriet Harman will be the candidates for the new Leader; Cruddas will be out of parliament and Jack Straw will not win enough support. Harman will win. Brown did quit, though days rather than hours after the polls but this is because of the bizarre coalition negotiations! I was wrong that he'd quit as an MP but he has been widely slammed for lack of attention to that job. I'm still not convinced he'll be there come the eve of the 2015 election. The first by-election was caused in Oldham by a pretty ancient ruling from an election court. On the Labour Leadership, like most others I guess, I never saw Red Ed as even a challenger. Straw didn't stand (neither did Harman or Johnson). Not very good there, Little!

4. Nick Clegg will, despite a poor overall result (the LibDems will lose seats), cling on as LibDem Leader pointing to some spectacular gains from Labour as his defining moment. Their gains will not include any in Norfolk or Suffolk. Almost correct; with one minor slip! Clegg did get a poor result and they did lose seats. He is still leader and their most spectacular gains (like Redcar and Burnley) were from Labour. There was, of course, one gain in Norfolk and Suffolk ...

5. The overwhelming majority of newspaper websites will be "pay-to-view" by the end of the year. Again, I was a bit early with this one - the Murdoch empire (which which I am not at war with) are switching other with more to follow. I think this may be proved to be correct come 2011.

6. The Queen will still be monarch with no signs of being otherwise, but Prince Charles will prompt a political controversy with the new government. The Queen is still there, Charles has kept silent on the government and I missed the tiny issue of a royal engagement.

7. Local Government Reorganisation in Norfolk will come to nothing, but nobody will take any political responsibility despite the massive cost involved. Spot on in all respects, but I never predicted it would by the High Court that did the deed, or the by-elections that would follow.

8. Diplomas will stay despite the new government's radical education policy. Correct! Gove has proved to be a radical Education Secretary so far and Diploma's are still with us.

9. Matt Smith will prove a more popular Doctor Who than David Tennant, to the surprise of pretty much everybody. This may depend on who you ask but I think this is correct!

10. The new MP for Norwich South will be ... that chap, oooohhhh, whats-his-name, thingey ... ;-)

I will have think long and hard about my 2011 predictions; but the one that got away is the most interesting. On my planned blog post instead of the one about Doctor Who I had included Steve Morphew to have quit as Labour Leader at City Council ... which would have both been correct and made me look like Mystic Meg!

1 comment:

Hellesdon Citizen said...

Did you also predict Iain Dale will give up political blogging?

Personally I thought it was only a matter of time before he did.
His blog suffered so much from quality control issues.