Spectator competition winners: unlikely forecasts for the year ahead

In Competition No. 3330 you were invited to submit some improbable forecasts, in verse, for the year ahead. Things you deemed unlikely to happen this year ranged from the predictable – peace in Ukraine, a reversal of climate change – to the whimsical: Donald Trump as the next Pope and Snoop Dogg eloping with Penny Mordaunt. The winners earn £25.

Around the UK coast he’ll steer
His rusty, overladen barge,
locating homes for refugees…
What are you up to now, Farage?

If punishment that’s capital
Can find itself again restored,
There’ll be a chance for Penny M,
To demonstrate her massive sword.

Incompetently, Cleverly
Called Stockton some disgusting names,
But, in this topsy-turvy world,
The New Year holds great hopes for James.

And soon we’ll cheer for Meghan’s Hal –
They say his follow-up to Spare
Is guaranteed the Booker prize,
And/or the Oxford English Chair!

C. Paul Evans

Donald Trump will bend his knee,
confess his sins, repent,
then focus on philanthropy
till down to his last cent,
then find himself a campaign bus
to travel nationwide in,
confessing, ‘I was treasonous,
so please elect Joe Biden.’

Then Putin, moved to tears by this,
will pull out from Ukraine,
and all the crazies of the world
will suddenly turn sane.
And by the end of twenty-four
the hungry will be fed.
What’s more, there’ll be an end to war
in the year that lies ahead.

Robert Schechter

The murmurs of ‘Good show!’ out of 15 Savile Row
when Rishi Sunak’s trousers meet his shoes,
are found to be misplaced when a lower-riding waist
discloses his Luke Skywalker tattoos.

An Arran-wide bonanza from Kildonan to Lochranza
when a ferry plies the mackerel-teeming Firth,
is surpassed when Lorna Salter in a yellow excavator
duals the carriageway from Inverness to Perth.

As the Chipping Norton set infiltrate the Cabinet,
the Bamfords bring organic expertise,
Lord Clarkson is arrayed as the Secretary of Trade,
and Alex James as Minister for Cheese.

Hello! and Private Eye have departed for Dubai,
while Riyadh favours Country Life and Heat.
The Telegraph and Sun print the views of Kim Jong-un,
but the barricades are manned in Old Queen Street.