Total Politics asks “What’s in store for us in 2009?” and in the absence of a crystal ball, offers a few lists:
(if you’d rather it were a surprise, look away now)
The view from the village – politicians and pundits’ predictions, including Chris Huhne’s:
The recession will be deeper and longer than most people think because big booms are always followed by big busts, and the UK housing market was the most overvalued and over-borrowed in the developed world. We will be doubly hit because of our reliance on financial services.
The Political Faces of 2009, with Lynne Featherstone right at the top:
Lynne Featherstone’s response to the Baby P tragedy (her constituency forms part of Haringey) propelled her to the frontline of Lib Dem politicians. Her main strength is that she comes over as a normal person, rather than an inhabitant of the Westminster village. She talks ‘normal’ in a way that few politicians do. She ran Chris Huhne’s leadership campaign so is not close to Nick Clegg, but even he must now recognise she deserves a much more prominent frontbench position than Youth and Equality.
And some “not wholly serious predictions about the political year ahead”, with a scurrilous one for September:
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg takes his party conference by storm by telling his party faithful to “go back to your constituencies and prepare to lose seats”.
Read the tea leaves in full here.
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8 Comments
Very annoyed that equality is seen as a low rank position.
Have to agree about the economy; other than that a June 2009 General Election to be proceeded by reshuffles from both David Cameron and Nick Clegg.
Outcome of the election to be either a hung-parliament or slender Conservative majority depending on the mood music at the time. Optimistically we will end-up with between 40-50 seats, pessimistically less than 40 depending on how well we avoid being squeezed.
Jennie – glad someone else is rankled by that! Youth and Equality is seen as a low rank position, and not just by Iain Dale. But perhaps he might have said ‘three cheers to Lynne for giving the Youth and Equality frontbench position the prominence it deserves’.
Ned: indeed.
My predictions:-
(1) Lib Dems make a net gain of County Council seats, but only just.
(2) UKIP falls back by 3% in the Euro elections, possibly putting the Lib Dems in third place.
(3) Nick Clegg clings on, but still fails to make a favourable impression.
(4) Unemployment hits 3 million.
(5) Growing unrest arising from the country’s economic woes enables the government to introduce a further series of draconian laws: ID cards, satellite surveillance of motor vehicles, jail for truants, blanket curfews, raising of the legal drinking age to 21, censoring of the internet, etc.
(6) Laurence Boyce gets a job.
Sesenco – can’t see 6. happening!
To be fair he did say “more prominent” rather than “more important”.
He is probably right that it isn’t prominent. Whether it should be seen as more important is a different matter.
Laurence doesn’t have to get a job; I can give him as many leaflets to deliver as he likes in The Shelfords, Sawston, Hardwick or Girton – just drop me a line Laurence, and I’ll keep you fit!