2005 - The Year Ahead

Predicting the future leaves you wide open to making mistakes. Errare humanum est [ To err is human ]. In the long term some possibilities become certainties. Here is my offering. Last year is easier of course. See 2004

Blair will win the election. The Liberals may well hold the balance of power. Blair and Kennedy will turn out to be even worse than Blair.

The Tories will lose big time. What is left of them will sack Hecht.

The BNP will get leaned on using race hatred as an excuse. BNP men will be put in prison before the election to frighten people off.

House prices will drift down at best. There may well be a collapse with mass repossessions.

The dollar will drift on down too, at best. Again it might well collapse and cause major problems, for Americans especially.

Les resistants in Iraq will carry on fighting against the American invaders and getting better at it.

Torture will be proven at Guantánamo as well as Abu Ghraib. Bush will be implicated.

Iraqi oil will cease to flow, not that it is moving very fast anyway.

Bush will have Iran invaded using WMD as an excuse. Iranian oil will cease to flow too.

Oil prices will go much higher - say $100 a barrel from the current $45.

Good news? Not a lot.

I would not mind being proved wrong on some of these things. Time will tell.

Eric Margolis has a view too
He will be wrong too but some points look pretty solid.