Looking forward to the New Year: ten guesses for 2023
The idea that I have any qualification to predict the future is ridiculous, but I reserve the right to have a guess. I will also enjoy people chucking such conjectures back at me when I turn out to be wrong — or even fall flat on my face. Here are ten things which I think will happen in 2023.
First, this summer will be known as an Ashes Summer, up there with 1981 and 2005. The prospect is lip-smackingly enticing. The current England team is ripping up trees in the most expansive, exciting brand of Test cricket ever played by a team from this country. It will be a clash of flamboyant English cavaliers versus hardened Australian roundheads. I can’t wait to see how it will unfold.
Second, people will be surprised by the level of excitement around the Coronation on May 6 — not least the King and his ministers, who seem to be putting the fun in sponge. London will be the stage for the occasion, but the audience will sit in the communities outside the capital. This continually outfoxes politicians, who tend to be tuned into the mood music of the capital, rather than the country at large.
Third, and continuing on a royal bent, Harry will have a big start to the year with the publication of his book, but gradually fade from national view. He will occasionally pop up to chuck the odd grenade at his brother and father, but “Megxit” will have largely faded from memory by the time the Crown is placed on Charles III’s head. This is great news for Jeremy Clarkson, will be able to sleep at night, free from getting excited about chucking excrement at women.
Fourth, and talking of chucking excrement, the likes of Clarkson, Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan will continue to vomit forth bile, and others will chuck it back at them. Arguments will get polarised and people in the middle will roll their eyes. Nothing prophetic here, but these “crusaders for free speech” will find the platforms they broadcast from under increasing pressure. Media headlines in 2023 will be about Elon Musk being mad as a box of frogs, but the main issue for any commercial media platform, from Twitter to the Daily Star, will be the deep recession in advertising during 2023. The UK will only be big enough for one of Talk TV or GB News by the end of next year. It won’t be much easier for the subscriber platforms, such as Netflix and Disney+ who will find the competition for viewers even more cutthroat as disposable income dries up and share prices come down. 2023 will be a year of dramatic change for broadcasters, social media and the tech sector at large.
Fifth, the first half of 2023 will see some of the toughest economic times this country has gone through in the postwar age. The strikes we are currently witnessing will continue to stretch into the spring, but with a growing backdrop of civil strife as jobs are lost in the private sector.
Sixth, Sterling and the FTSE will continue to struggle for the year and linger below the heights of 2018. Furthermore, and more importantly, the UK will carry on falling behind its nearest international competitors. Markets have calmed toward the UK since the disastrous Truss/Kwarteng shambles, but there is still international trepidation toward Britain. We will struggle to access international markets, with business held in a political straightjacket of red tape.
Seventh, because of points five and six, Rishi Sunak will have to do something in 2023. So far his premiership been a political lesson in the power of doing very little. Despite all the strikes and recession, Sunak has largely stepped away from the melée and his popularity has increased accordingly (admittedly from a low base and in no small part merely because he is not Liz Truss). However, there’s only so long he can stand there and do nothing.
Eighth, the most likely issue Sunak will get embroiled in is Brexit. At some point in 2023 the UK will have to negotiate a workable deal with the EU. If he does this well then Sunak will open up export markets and help grow a battered economy out of recession. There’s only so long politicians can duck the fact that Brexit isn’t working: whether the whole project was a foolhardy experiment or just the Boris Johnson’s form of departure will come down to Sunak’s actions (or lack of them) in the next year.
Nine, Sunak won’t come back from Brussels with yet another “deal”. That word is now politically toxic: “No deal is better than a bad deal”, “Oven-ready deal”, “No deal Brexit”, “Canada/Swiss-style deal”. If a solution is to be hammered out in the next 12 months, we will end up with something which looks like the 2018 Chequers Plan, but achieved through numerous small step solutions to specific issues such as exporting to the EU, immigration and the Northern Ireland land boarder. Sunak will salami slice his way to a workable relationship with Brussels: Brexit will end with a fudge, not a deal.
Ten, the darkest hour is just before dawn. When we look back on this recent period of British history we will see a country reeling, like the rest of the world, from the aftermath of a pandemic and the implications of Putin’s war in Ukraine. The reason why these international headwinds are exacerbated in the UK is because of the long term realities of Brexit and the hangover caused by the Liz Truss premiership — perhaps the most idiotic 45 days in British political history. Add to that the death of the Queen and a country which has never really seen the promised fruits of the austerity agenda and you get a nation which is battered, but not beaten. Things can only get better, and this time next year, we might be at the start of a new dawn.
If not, we’ve always got the cricket.
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