Predictions for 2011

There will probably be the beginnings of a double dip recession in the UK and the whole of Europe due to 1920s / early 30s style austerity programmes. Growing demonstrations and possibly even riots will take place against the cuts. As unemployment and poverty rise, support for right-wing extremist parties such as the British National Party will increase across Europe, though there will be some revival in the poll ratings of the radical and moderate left and Greens too. Support for pro-austerity conservatives like Cameron in the UK, Merkel in Germany and Sarkozy in France will erode further as cuts start to bite and they're squeezed between the left and centre left on the one hand and the far right on the other.

The SNP will no longer be the largest minority party in the Scottish parliament after the 2011 elections - Labour will be, due to the recession and the SNP being seen as the incumbents in Scotland (plus much misleading Labour, Conservative and media propaganda about Megrahi, who is almost certainly not the Lockerbie bomber and never had a fair trial).

Lib Dems will lose most of their Scottish parliament and council seats. As a result Labour, while taking some seats from the SNP and Lib Dems, will be unable to re-form its past coalition with the Lib Dems - and will be forced to rely on the Greens the way the SNP currently do.

The Greens will have picked up a couple of seats from the Lib Dem collapse on the second vote and from the ongoing civil war between the SSP and Solidarity (unless that’s been patched up by May, which seems unlikely) and will have more influence than they do now.

Labour will win the Oldham by-election with a greatly increased majority, with Lib Dem votes slipping away to Labour and the Conservatives.

Republican control of congress will make it impossible for Obama to get any further meaningful continued welfare support for the unemployed or economic stimulus through congress and put more pressure on him to be more nationalistic and belligerent in foreign policy.

The growing extremism of the Israeli government will make another Gaza style war likely - and wars with Lebanon, Syria or even Iran a high risk.

If the double dip recession spreads globally (with about the only thing currently militating against it being Chinese economic stimulus programmes and increased minimum wages) World War Three over disputes between the allies of the US on the one hand and China and Russia on the other becomes a bigger risk (e.g Georgia, the two Koreas, Pakistan vs India).

War between India and Pakistan over Kashmir or continued Pak military support for terrorist groups in Kashmir and India is also a serious risk.

NATO forces will begin a withdrawal from Afghanistan and an attempt to get a coalition government there, as they have no way to defeat the Taliban while our Pakistani military and Saudi "allies" continue to arm them, partly with arms and funds our own governments have given them - and cannot target the Pakistani military as they require its co-operation to get enough supplies through the ports and passes of Pakistan into Afghanistan.

This will not stop the US or its NATO allies continuing to sell arms and provide military aid to these supposed "allies" as a means of making profits for their own arms and oil firms.

Jihadist terrorist attacks worldwide will continue to grow due largely to the continued US and European policy of backing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Blockade in Gaza, their support for dictatorships in Jordan, Saudi, Yemen and Egypt - and US cruise missile attacks and US and British special forces operations in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Whether it's Labour or Conservatives we need to avoid big public sector job losses leading to another recession - and we need P.R

Well - in complete contradiction to my own guesses before the election Labour increased it's majority in my constituency due to fear of a Conservative government (full result here) After spending a week organising my campaign, election communication and website and three weeks knocking on doors and ringing doorbells I got well and truly gubbed with 670 votes, 1.4% of the total number cast. It is a 48% increase on my vote last time but still irrelevant to the result as a whole.

(Thanks very much though to everyone who voted for me and everyone who campaigned for me and all the people who were polite or friendly on the doorstep when i interrupted their tea or their TV programmes or their baths and showers, or getting the kids to bed.)

(I’m still considering standing on the second vote on the Scottish parliament’s regional list for the South of Scotland next year, but not decided yet. The additional member system is as favourable to small parties and independents as the first past the post system for Westminster elections is unfavourable, but the list has 500,000 voters on it across a vast area – and many voters don’t realise that voting for a big party twice in Scottish Parliament elections will usually result in no additional seats for that party.)

I can’t blame people here for being scared of a Conservative government and voting Labour out of fear of it as bad rather than much worse.

On top of that the Conservatives (pretty much the UK equivalent of the Republicans) have won the largest number of seats in parliament - and whether they or Labour win they've both said they'll make cuts in public spending bigger than Thatcher did - as Labour Chancellor Alastair Darling said before the election. They won't touch military spending, or private finance initiatives, or public subsidies to arms firms, or public subsidies to privatised rail firms - nor raise taxes on the highest earners, nor close down tax havens.

So that means lots of public sector workers sacked (the local councils have already started by sacking the lollipop ladies and men (road safety wardens) for road crossings at primary schools.

More people made unemployed would mean reduced demand in the economy, which will result in knock on job losses in the private sector. This would likely lead to a "double dip recession" like the one Japan suffered in the 1990s, with the job losses killing the recovery of the economy.

All in all it looks pretty grim unless the big parties’ leaders step back from the brink or the smaller parties and some back-bench Labour MPs on the left of the party can prevent it – which I hope they can.

We certainly will have to cut public spending and/or increase taxes to avoid the risk of ending up a bit like Greece (though our public spending and debt as percentages of GDP are lower than Greece’s and we can vary the interest rate as we have our own currency, so we’ll hopefully avoid that fate). The question is who to tax and what cuts to make. We can’t afford to make large numbers of public sector employees unemployed any more than we can afford to continue without any cuts our tax rises. The most important thing is not that we eliminate the debt rapidly but that we rebuild an economy that can pay off that debt rather than slash and burn into a vicious circle of rising unemployment.

I'm still hopeful that we might get proportional representation for future elections if the Lib Dems stick to their guns on demanding PR in return for any kind of support for a minority government. That would mean that in future elections people could vote for the candidate or party they agree with most instead of mostly voting negatively against the party they dislike most and for one they only see as slightly less bad.

Nick Clegg would be a fool to accept David Cameron's vague promises of an all party electoral commission to discuss reform - he needs to hold out for a solid commitment to bring in proportional representation - and would be more likely to get that from Labour, who have less seats and so are more desperate to make a deal - and who at least believe that public services should exist and be well funded, unlike most Conservatives, even if both parties (and the Lib Dems) have gone for the over-charging and service cuts resulting from PFI and PPP deals.