Correspondents Look Ahead

As I've written before, I've been tuning into (and enjoying) Radio 4's Correspondents Look Ahead for decades now, and this year was no different. 

A few years back, in the early years of this blog, I posted a review of the predictions made on the previous year's edition and found them to be almost entirely wrong, and I had great fun pointing it out (especially at Paul Mason's expense). The post even got a mention on that year's Correspondents Look Ahead where I was cast as "a rather unkind blogger". 

Unfortunately for me, however, it backfired. I really do think that the programme became far more cautious - indeed boring - as a result, especially for the next couple of years when hardly any concrete (i.e. potentially embarrassing) predictions were made. 

Thankfully, especially as I've held back recently in pointing out the wrong predictions recently, we've finally arrived back the stage where caution is being thrown to the wind again - though, that said, quite a few of this year's predictions weren't exactly that daring!

Here's a list of the predictions for 2018. Should we all rush out to the bookies?

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James Naughtie 

• Donald Trump will be devastated by insider revelations about chaos in the White House.
• The Democrats will win control of the House of Representatives in the November election.
• Donald Trump's tax bill is going to prove "spectacularly unpopular with voters".
• Russia will have a successful World Cup.
• Joe Biden will announce that he's running for the presidency but won't win the nomination.
• There'll be some form of internet collapse.

James Robbins

• The Democrats will win control of the House in the November election.
• There will be a Cuba+++ moment in South Korea with the mass evacuation of Seoul due to US/North Korean tension.
• There will be "a non-disastrous rumbling on" of the Brexit talks. 
• The UK government will suffer at least one substantial House of Commons defeat led by Remainers but will then narrowly squeak through a confidence motion and avoid a general election.
• Russia will not have a successful World Cup because of its far-right and outside media scrutiny.
• 2018 will be the year of renewables and batteries. 

Carrie Gracie 

• Donald Trump will announce a series of "robust measures" to try to deal with the enormous trade deficits that the United States suffers in relation to China.
• There will be negotiations on the Korean peninsula between China, the United States, South Korea and North Korea. A deal will be struck whereby North Korea agrees to freeze its nuclear and missile programmes in exchange for the US and South Korea "dialling back" their military exercises on the peninsula.
• Either the Dalai Lama or the Pope will make a visit to China.

Yolande Knell 

• The Democrats will win control of the House in the November election.
• Donald Trump will launch and pursue a peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians which won't succeed.
• Donald Trump will reimpose US sanctions on Iran but the Iran Nuclear Deal will survive thanks to its other signatories.
• Russia's Syria peace conference will fail to bring about peace.
• PM Haider al-Abadi and President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi will win their respective elections.
• Yair Lapid (a "moderate") will lead the next Israeli government after the fall of Benjamin Netanyahu.
• Mohammed bin-Salman's popularity will drop with the young because of his austerity measures and the contrast with his own lavish lifestyle.
• Mohammed bin-Salman to squeeze Jordan and the Palestinians over accepting the terms of a Trump peace plan.
• There'll be a resurgence of al-Qaeda.

Owen Bennett-Jones 

• Imran Khan to become PM of Pakistan.

Kevin Connolly 

• The Democrats will win control of the House in the November election.
• Because of his "terrible" polling numbers Donald Trump might be content to be a one-term president and stand aside.
• Brexit is going to rumble along "a bit less disastrously than you might think".
• Russia will have a successful World Cup.
• Trouble for the EU will come from Poland and Hungary for the EU and they may be more awkward for the EU than the UK ever was.

Everyone

• Vladimir Putin will win the Russian election.

The one that made me chuckle was OB-J's prediction that Imran Khan might become PM of Pakistan. Imran Khan's big breakthrough has been a regular prediction on Correspondents Look Ahead, on and off, for years now. And it's never happened so far. Will it finally come true?