Old Fruitcake's 2011 Wiki Almanac

"May 2011 bring prosperity to all our readers - stuffing the bastards in the process." This is old Fruitcake's message to the world at the start of the year, and there is no prize for guessing who he might mean. He apologises that the staff have been off enjoying themselves but he's got them to work now reviewing last year and employing various arcane sciences to make astoundingly accurate predictions (fingers crossed) for the coming year.

Lessons from 2010

• There is a particular kind of ambitious lunatic who hasn't got a clue but who people let start running things. They often have glittery eyes (e.g. Sarah Palin) and dangerous levels of self-belief
• You can't negotiate with Mephistopheles (e.g Vince Cable)
• Losing your job may not  always be the end of the world but it is a right hassle
• Suddenly there may be snowdrifts or clouds of volcanic ash
• Fruitcake Miniature College functions more efficiently, effectively, and humanely than Hardacre Collage
• People expected too much of Barack Obama. It was inevitable.
• A crisis can usefully be blamed on your predecessors - for a while
• A global crisis in an unregulated banking sector can make a great excuse for dismantling public provision
• Muslims are the new Jews. Terrorists are the new atheists and Jesuits
• There's an awful lot we're only told by accident

Predictions for the UK in 2011

• "We're all in this together," will come back to haunt David Cameron and his Cabinet of billionaires
• The same gentleman will similarly be woken in the night by the phrase "The Big Society," which by then will clearly mean giving bossy people with time on their hands the chance to get in the way
• Mephistopheles will turn up in Nick Clegg's bedroom looking at his watch and suggesting running shoes
• The Labour Party - recognising how seriously it pissed people off with the Iraq war, and by trying to be the Conservatives, and wanting to watch me going shopping on CCTV, etc etc, will announce loudly and clearly that what it wants to do is help people look after each other on a basis of equality (this item courtesy of a phoenix)
• Ed Milliband will at last start to feel the force strong within him (this item courtesy Obi-Wan Kanobi)
• A Conservative Government - Sorry? Oh, yes - a Coalition Government led by the Conservative Party will increase the tax on pretty much everything in the world to 20% (honestly, it's called VAT and it's happening at midnight tonight)
• Changes in the funding of education will create a new generation of politically active people - hopefully across social divides

Predictions for the world in 2011

• Like the sun , a great emperor will arise in the east, and a great emperor will sink in the west (well, this sort of thing worked for Nostradamus)
• Poor people will sell bits of their brains to rich people (What? They do already?)
• We will wear curiously close fitting silver clothes as we manoeuvre our jet packs and glide about on moving pavements (because  it has to come true at last sometime - we were promised in the comics)
• There will be snow storms and volcanoes (so to speak)
• When the sun is in Taurus it will be time to start counting spoons (my voices tell me)
• It will be time to start planting broad beans before we know it
• A great leader with huge whiskers, a love of fish, and a loud voice will lead humanity into a true understanding of idleness

A new year, a new term - homework for leaders everywhere
Take off all your clothes and look in a full-length mirror a long long time.

Let's hope it works