Ten things you don’t want to happen in 2012, but which probably will

My predictions for 2012


1. After the Arab Spring and the Islamist Winter will come Armageddon Summer. It might happen as early as spring but that season has been bagged already. At Islington dinner parties, on the BBC and in the Guardian — after cursory acknowledgement has been made of all the dead innocents — the conclusion will be reached that Israel is to blame. As if its very existence wasn’t provocation enough, Israel has consistently — and deliberately — mocked its poor, struggling neighbours with its outrageous displays of democracy, accountability and economic growth.

2. Boris will make some spectacular gaffe. Perhaps he will suggest, outrageously, that the gentle clean-living folk of Glasgow live on nothing but fried Mars bars, heroin and Buckfast; perhaps he will dispute the widely acknowledged saw that Islam is the ‘Religion of Peace’; perhaps he will point out that HS2 (High Speed 2) is the equivalent of paying the unemployed £10,000 an hour to dig holes then fill them up again, only less useful.