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It's going to be a grim new year, but human spirit will get us through 2011
by Tony Parsons, Daily Mirror 1/01/2011
It has been a long time since a new year has been marked with so little hope, so little enthusiasm, and so much VAT (raised to 20% on Tuesday).
As the song says – all is quiet on New Year’s Day. And as the other song says – there are hard times just around the corner. 2011 will be a momentous year.
The world population is now expected to top the seven billion mark.
America – and the world – will observe the tenth anniversary of 9/11. 1.3 billion Chinese will celebrate the Year of the Rabbit. Prince William gets married in April. Barack Obama turns fifty in August.
Oprah Winfrey will quit her TV chat show. Soldiers will come back from faraway wars in coffins and in wheelchairs. Tony Blair will get even richer.
DISASTERS
There will be natural disasters that are as yet unimaginable. Technology that once seemed so groundbreaking will increasingly become part of the scenery – the home computer as unremarkable as a toaster.
Twitter turns five in 2011. Wikipedia turns ten. The Space Shuttle flies its final mission. The twenty-first century will no longer seem new.
And in Britain, the misery of mass unemployment will be back with a vengeance, as the dole queue closes in on three million, the highest for 17 years.
In almost every nation across the Western world, there will be deficit reduction, leading to a clash between unions protecting their members, and politicians slashing their budgets.
All kinds of governments spent money with abandon – George Bush spent more public money than any American President since Lyndon Johnson – and now all kinds of governments will be cutting like crazy. But will cutting too deep and too fast annihilate recovery?
Apart from total basket cases like Greece, who chose to retire early and do the lambada on the beach when they should have been making BMWs, nowhere will the cuts be deeper and more savage than in Britain.
This will result in a smaller state – and more bloodshed, more social division, more people in the streets fighting for their education, their job, their life. 2011 is when David Cameron’s “Big Society” blows up in his chinless face.
Strikes, riots, some poor young copper with his head split open, some innocent protestor with blood in his eyes – these will become depressingly familiar sights in 2011.
Nobody knows how badly the cuts of the ConDem coalition will rip at the fabric of our society, or if the example of rioting students will be followed by the unemployed.
But it will not be riots that tear apart the coalition, or gossip – of course they hate each other – or strikes. What will tear them apart will be the coming war between Cameron and Clegg.
Expect increased tension between Nick and Dave after the alternative-voting referendum in May.
When the LibDem dream is dismissed by a bored public unconvinced of the need for electoral change, Clegg will realise that his political ambition has destroyed his party for nothing. A different way of counting votes is the great dream of LibDems.
When they see that dream receding for a generation, the Coalition will be under unbearable pressure.
Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/column...s-through-2011-115875-22818139/#ixzz19khWuGbW
by Tony Parsons, Daily Mirror 1/01/2011
It has been a long time since a new year has been marked with so little hope, so little enthusiasm, and so much VAT (raised to 20% on Tuesday).
As the song says – all is quiet on New Year’s Day. And as the other song says – there are hard times just around the corner. 2011 will be a momentous year.
The world population is now expected to top the seven billion mark.
America – and the world – will observe the tenth anniversary of 9/11. 1.3 billion Chinese will celebrate the Year of the Rabbit. Prince William gets married in April. Barack Obama turns fifty in August.
Oprah Winfrey will quit her TV chat show. Soldiers will come back from faraway wars in coffins and in wheelchairs. Tony Blair will get even richer.
DISASTERS
There will be natural disasters that are as yet unimaginable. Technology that once seemed so groundbreaking will increasingly become part of the scenery – the home computer as unremarkable as a toaster.
Twitter turns five in 2011. Wikipedia turns ten. The Space Shuttle flies its final mission. The twenty-first century will no longer seem new.
And in Britain, the misery of mass unemployment will be back with a vengeance, as the dole queue closes in on three million, the highest for 17 years.
In almost every nation across the Western world, there will be deficit reduction, leading to a clash between unions protecting their members, and politicians slashing their budgets.
All kinds of governments spent money with abandon – George Bush spent more public money than any American President since Lyndon Johnson – and now all kinds of governments will be cutting like crazy. But will cutting too deep and too fast annihilate recovery?
Apart from total basket cases like Greece, who chose to retire early and do the lambada on the beach when they should have been making BMWs, nowhere will the cuts be deeper and more savage than in Britain.
This will result in a smaller state – and more bloodshed, more social division, more people in the streets fighting for their education, their job, their life. 2011 is when David Cameron’s “Big Society” blows up in his chinless face.
Strikes, riots, some poor young copper with his head split open, some innocent protestor with blood in his eyes – these will become depressingly familiar sights in 2011.
Nobody knows how badly the cuts of the ConDem coalition will rip at the fabric of our society, or if the example of rioting students will be followed by the unemployed.
But it will not be riots that tear apart the coalition, or gossip – of course they hate each other – or strikes. What will tear them apart will be the coming war between Cameron and Clegg.
Expect increased tension between Nick and Dave after the alternative-voting referendum in May.
When the LibDem dream is dismissed by a bored public unconvinced of the need for electoral change, Clegg will realise that his political ambition has destroyed his party for nothing. A different way of counting votes is the great dream of LibDems.
When they see that dream receding for a generation, the Coalition will be under unbearable pressure.
Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/column...s-through-2011-115875-22818139/#ixzz19khWuGbW
