1. The virus will continue to do its worst. It may well mutate further. There will be another outbreak (possibly even a serious one) in China but the Chinese government will say far less about it. Foreign journalists reporting on it will be expelled. Chinese journalists won’t report on it for fear of facing the same fate as Zhang Zhan.
2. The government’s vaccination programme will not reach the level of daily vaccinations needed to stop its spread. By early summer the U.K. will be a unhappy and uneasy mixture of areas still under restrictions, vaccinated groups and the unvaccinated, many of whom will ignore those restrictions still in place. Borders will still be open for travellers.
3. The government will keep making promises about the worst being over on various dates, all of which will be regularly postponed.
4. There will be at least one scandal about some group trying – possibly succeeding – to get privileged access to the vaccine ahead of its turn in the priority list.
5. The government will continue to undermine the Nolan Principles of Public Life. Robert Jenrick will probably be promoted. Liz Truss will hope to be before she has to embark on the altogether tougher task of negotiating new trade deals and not just rollover ones. She will continue to make speeches on subjects outside her Ministerial position as part of her Thatcher-like campaign to be next Tory leader.
6. Some NHS hospitals will be unable to accept patients and will turn them away. There will be a furious political row about whether this means the NHS has “collapsed“. The fate of those patients turned away will be of little interest other than insofar as political points can be made.
7. The long slow death of those sectors dependant on socialising and social closeness – hospitality, leisure, the arts, high street retail – will continue. There will be no Big Bang – no closure of a famous shop to grab the headlines. (Though if things get really bad, my wild bet is on John Lewis, at which point people will ask whether appointing someone with no retail experience to head up the company was a good idea.) The toll in closed businesses and lost jobs will affect every part of the U.K.
8. Sunak will come under continuing pressure to help sectors in trouble but will do too little too late. Everyone will face the same storm but not everyone will be in the same boat. An aspiring Labour backbencher may even use such a phrase or something similar. He or she will be hailed as a genius for saying something remotely memorable by comparison with the Shadow Chancellor or, sotto voce, Sir Keir.
9. Labour will regret voting for the Brexit deal, as more comes out about what it means in reality for former Labour voters. By the autumn as Labour fails to establish or maintain a lead over the Tories, there will be grumbling about Starmer’s leadership.
10. Republicans will seek to undermine Jo Biden by attacking the business dealings of his son, Hunter. No smoking gun will be found but a general impression of shadiness will be created.
11. China will use its armed forces somewhere in Asia. The West’s response will be confused.

Cyclefree