Predictions for 2025 as revealed in the bottom of a pint glass.
The UK is going to be in for a very very rough ride. The economy is basically going to tank. After inheriting the fastest-growing economy in the G7, Keir Starmer's Labour has managed, through increasing bureaucracy, increased costs and red tape for business, to completely reverse that in the space of just six months. That will get even worse in 2025, with the economy stagnating, unemployment rising, job vacancies falling and disposable incomes for all but benefit claimants and public sector workers, falling. The government will continue non-stop to try and gaslight the population by continually saying they need to raise taxes to improve the economy - something that is actually impossible to do. Higher taxes are a fiscal drag on a flat-lining economy and the more you raise them, the further it slows.
Issues over immigration - both legal and illegal, will haunt Labour just as they did the Tories before them and likewise child rape gangs with Labour being unwilling/unable to move in the direction the public wants and expects and the public in turn becoming increasingly disillusioned and angry. The days where the population respected the political class as a paternal 'we-know-what-is-best-for-you' group are long gone. The public now view politicians as disposable items from a service industry, there to please the public the way the public wants irrespective of what politicians think, and the speed of social media means the government no longer controls the information flow.
The political scene is one of great instability. Disillusionment becomes widespread amongst Labour back-benchers and Starmer will be lucky to survive the year as Labour leader (he won't be leading them into the next election anyway, you can bet on that. I have LOL). However other leaders will not be so lucky. Kemi Badenoch - who is already becoming frustrated by her party's inability to modernise quickly, will probably just walk away. I rather fancy Plaid Cymru's Rhun Iorworth (who I have met lots of times and chatted with, and who is a decent man but a dreadful politician), will be overthrown as his party continues in Senedd polls to trail behind both Labour and Reform, with the Tories snapping at it's heels. The rising star in politics will continue to be Nigel Farage nationally and the SNP's Stephen Flynn at a regional level.
The UK will suffer declining relations with the US and several leading members of the Commonwealth as well as with the EU as Starmer continues with his policy of trying to ride several horses all pulling in different directions. His backbenchers won't trust him, the US won't trust him, the EU won't trust him, NATO won't trust him, the Commonwealth won't trust him and the UK electorate won't trust him (the UK electorate already doesn't by quite some margin - the worst on record). At least he will be consistent.
Labour will continue to nose-dive in the polls. They won the General Election from a record-breaking low position and will continue to fall even further. The Tories will collapse into civil war with the MPs' choice - Jenrick, replacing the members' choice - Badenoch. That will be the point of no return for the membership, having seen a coup by MPs' choice Sunak to replace their choice Truss, repeated with Jenrick over Badenoch, and as a result a significant chunk - including many sitting councillors and MPs, will cross-over to Farage's Reform. Do not be at all surprised if at some stage this year, Reform UK are topping the opinion polls.
Terrorism will continue to haunt the UK and will overlap with illegal immigration in that undocumented people will have infiltrated specifically to carry out attacks. To further make life difficult for Starmer and Labour, there will be some sort of large-scale virus later in the year - there are several virulent viruses currently being monitored globally, each of which is capable of producing a pandemic and with Covid and its economic after effects still fresh in nearly everyone's minds, large parts of the population and the political class will panic.
On the international stage, the wars in the Middle East will rumble on but at a far lower intensity. The pieces are nearly in place now for the end game - the over-throwing of the theocratic government of Iran - which when it happens, will be quick and far less messy than people feared. The Ukraine war will enter its final phase in the coming months and serious efforts at a peace of sorts will commence.
The French government will fall yet again as Macron arrogantly persists in holding on to the Presidency at all costs - but he will fall eventually and France's economic structural problems will worsen significantly, possibly to the point of needing an IMF/ECB bail-out and re-structuring as happened to the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland Greece, Spain).
The Irish government will fall yet again and will remain highly unstable. The causes of it's problems will worsen. The Irish voters have yet to grasp that if you keep voting the same way, you'll end up with the same result.
Poland will become increasingly right-wing in policy and practice and will become increasingly more powerful in the EU and not afraid to flex its muscle with the Commission when it is in Poland's national interests even if it is against the wishes of the EU, which will create major problems for the Commission.
The German Federal Elections will produce an inconclusive result with the CDU/CSU forming the core of a coalition government. What will become clear is that the populist-Right AfD and the populist-Left BSW are both here to stay. and will play an increasingly influential role in German politics until the bigger parties finally accept they have to address the public's concerns the way the public wants them addressed and not the way they are politically comfortable with.
Natural disasters - major floods, earthquakes, crop failures, volcanic activity etc will increase as the global climate becomes more and more unstable and solar activity continues to increase problems.
The march of Artificial Intelligence accelerates at a pace that catches politicians completely by surprise and it will become apparent that it is beyond their control. This will happen when scientists finally manage to connect quantum computing into AI. At that point, the genie will be out of the bottle and it will be obvious to all but a fool that AI is virtually uncontrollable and is anything but "just another tool".
China will go through major economic and political disturbance coupled with mass social unrest and this will reverberate throughout the West's economies because of the West's reliance on China for cheap consumer goods. China - like all empires, will decline over the next few decades and may even disintegrate into several smaller countries. At the same time, India will rise to fill the voids.
Trudeau's government in Canada will collapse following his resignation, to be replaced by a right-wing government that will seek far far closer ties economically and politically with Trump's USA and will abandon 'woke' nonsense and abandon most of the Net Zero policies and treaties. Do not be surprised if Australia also seeks far far closer ties and integration with the USA. This in turn may force Starmer to move the UK closer to the US orbit and further away from his beloved EU - the exact opposite of what he would prefer.
Trump's USA will start to pull away from the UN unless the UN agrees to reform and restructure the way the US wants.
Trump will be embroiled in large numbers of Court cases during his first six months as Democrats and pressure groups try to stop his plans.
There will be great financial upheaval across the free world caused by the pace, width and depth of the US changes under Trump & Musk. The more reserved and cautious UK & European stock markets and the banking sectors do not like fast change and will react accordingly. This will particularly hit London which is heavily reliant on both and is the centre of the world's investment banking and stock market industry. The old maxim of 'you can't spend your way out of debt' will come home to roost across europe and it will be the sheer financial power of the City and it's importance to the UK economy that will force Starmer's hand to move closer to the US and further from the EU.
The political scene is one of great instability. Disillusionment becomes widespread amongst Labour back-benchers and Starmer will be lucky to survive the year as Labour leader (he won't be leading them into the next election anyway, you can bet on that. I have LOL). However other leaders will not be so lucky. Kemi Badenoch - who is already becoming frustrated by her party's inability to modernise quickly, will probably just walk away. I rather fancy Plaid Cymru's Rhun Iorworth (who I have met lots of times and chatted with, and who is a decent man but a dreadful politician), will be overthrown as his party continues in Senedd polls to trail behind both Labour and Reform, with the Tories snapping at it's heels. The rising star in politics will continue to be Nigel Farage nationally and the SNP's Stephen Flynn at a regional level.
The UK will suffer declining relations with the US and several leading members of the Commonwealth as well as with the EU as Starmer continues with his policy of trying to ride several horses all pulling in different directions. His backbenchers won't trust him, the US won't trust him, the EU won't trust him, NATO won't trust him, the Commonwealth won't trust him and the UK electorate won't trust him (the UK electorate already doesn't by quite some margin - the worst on record). At least he will be consistent.
Labour will continue to nose-dive in the polls. They won the General Election from a record-breaking low position and will continue to fall even further. The Tories will collapse into civil war with the MPs' choice - Jenrick, replacing the members' choice - Badenoch. That will be the point of no return for the membership, having seen a coup by MPs' choice Sunak to replace their choice Truss, repeated with Jenrick over Badenoch, and as a result a significant chunk - including many sitting councillors and MPs, will cross-over to Farage's Reform. Do not be at all surprised if at some stage this year, Reform UK are topping the opinion polls.
Terrorism will continue to haunt the UK and will overlap with illegal immigration in that undocumented people will have infiltrated specifically to carry out attacks. To further make life difficult for Starmer and Labour, there will be some sort of large-scale virus later in the year - there are several virulent viruses currently being monitored globally, each of which is capable of producing a pandemic and with Covid and its economic after effects still fresh in nearly everyone's minds, large parts of the population and the political class will panic.
On the international stage, the wars in the Middle East will rumble on but at a far lower intensity. The pieces are nearly in place now for the end game - the over-throwing of the theocratic government of Iran - which when it happens, will be quick and far less messy than people feared. The Ukraine war will enter its final phase in the coming months and serious efforts at a peace of sorts will commence.
The French government will fall yet again as Macron arrogantly persists in holding on to the Presidency at all costs - but he will fall eventually and France's economic structural problems will worsen significantly, possibly to the point of needing an IMF/ECB bail-out and re-structuring as happened to the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland Greece, Spain).
The Irish government will fall yet again and will remain highly unstable. The causes of it's problems will worsen. The Irish voters have yet to grasp that if you keep voting the same way, you'll end up with the same result.
Poland will become increasingly right-wing in policy and practice and will become increasingly more powerful in the EU and not afraid to flex its muscle with the Commission when it is in Poland's national interests even if it is against the wishes of the EU, which will create major problems for the Commission.
The German Federal Elections will produce an inconclusive result with the CDU/CSU forming the core of a coalition government. What will become clear is that the populist-Right AfD and the populist-Left BSW are both here to stay. and will play an increasingly influential role in German politics until the bigger parties finally accept they have to address the public's concerns the way the public wants them addressed and not the way they are politically comfortable with.
Natural disasters - major floods, earthquakes, crop failures, volcanic activity etc will increase as the global climate becomes more and more unstable and solar activity continues to increase problems.
The march of Artificial Intelligence accelerates at a pace that catches politicians completely by surprise and it will become apparent that it is beyond their control. This will happen when scientists finally manage to connect quantum computing into AI. At that point, the genie will be out of the bottle and it will be obvious to all but a fool that AI is virtually uncontrollable and is anything but "just another tool".
China will go through major economic and political disturbance coupled with mass social unrest and this will reverberate throughout the West's economies because of the West's reliance on China for cheap consumer goods. China - like all empires, will decline over the next few decades and may even disintegrate into several smaller countries. At the same time, India will rise to fill the voids.
Trudeau's government in Canada will collapse following his resignation, to be replaced by a right-wing government that will seek far far closer ties economically and politically with Trump's USA and will abandon 'woke' nonsense and abandon most of the Net Zero policies and treaties. Do not be surprised if Australia also seeks far far closer ties and integration with the USA. This in turn may force Starmer to move the UK closer to the US orbit and further away from his beloved EU - the exact opposite of what he would prefer.
Trump's USA will start to pull away from the UN unless the UN agrees to reform and restructure the way the US wants.
Trump will be embroiled in large numbers of Court cases during his first six months as Democrats and pressure groups try to stop his plans.
There will be great financial upheaval across the free world caused by the pace, width and depth of the US changes under Trump & Musk. The more reserved and cautious UK & European stock markets and the banking sectors do not like fast change and will react accordingly. This will particularly hit London which is heavily reliant on both and is the centre of the world's investment banking and stock market industry. The old maxim of 'you can't spend your way out of debt' will come home to roost across europe and it will be the sheer financial power of the City and it's importance to the UK economy that will force Starmer's hand to move closer to the US and further from the EU.
