Predictions for London’s 2012

Second only to the tradition of reviewing the year just gone by are the predictions of doom for the year ahead. 2012 has seen a bumper crop from predictions of global war, planetary climate collapse or economic meltdown. So many different dooms have been foreseen for humanity that the four horsemen have had to hire in help – on short term contracts of course.

Here at Big Smoke we’re ever the optimists so you wont get such down beat futurology from us. Except possibly in this post.

First the good news. The Olympics. The  vast white elephant will be such an unmitigated disaster that the nation takes a collective vow never to host any such event ever again.

Medals. Due to a disappointing crop Team GB find themselves holding up the gold medalists in the 100 meters jazz dance and the wheelbarrow race as our sporting heroes. Meanwhile the traffic disasters and civil rights abuses will be overshadowed by the outbreak of a rare tropical disease in the Olympic Village – hence our unexpected win in the jazz dance.

Now the bad. May’s elections. Obviously everything is still to play for but as it stands right now the Conservative candidate, Boris Johnson, looks set to win a second term. The Liberal Democrats will see their three Assembly Members reduced to just one while a UKIP member will replace the BNP as the token idiot of choice.

Rioting and protest. As with all riots, last year saw large numbers of people queueing up to tell us that they had predicted the conflagration. The fact that they had predicted riots continually for the last ten years and, at last, they happened to be right does not mean they are reliable when they say London will be hit by more riots this year.

Big Smoke is going to go out on a limb and say there will be no repeat of Tottenham this year. There will be police shootings, there will be protest and, while some protest will get violent (the Met will see to that). However, the source  of that violence will not be either student or trade union protesters. New groups will be drawn into protest, often from unpredictable places. We wont guess whether it’s archaeologists or opticians but we will see new faces making their mark.

Anti-capitalist camping. By the beginning of February Occupy will have packed up its tents and left St Paul’s. The various indoor occupations will continue, or even expand, for a time but after a few months they too will have either disappeared or become so introverted that no one outside of a very small circle of activists will know they exist.

However, summer will see Occupy 2.0 back on London’s streets. It might not be called Occupy. In fact it probably wont be, but it will be clearly identifiable as the next generation. Whatever the form the protest takes it will a creative leap to be welcomed, even if it has some rough edges.

London’s transport. Apparently London has the most expensive public transport of any major city in the world (h/t Dave Hill) and that is not going to change. However there will  be some movement on road safety (often that movement accidentally making things worse) and the movement for living streets will go from strength to strength.

We predict another London council will go 20 mph, following Islington’s lead, which will pave the way for more councils in 2013. There will also be a growing mood for other measures that make our city more livable, especially for pedestrians. Meanwhile car parking charges will continue to cause rows and, unless Ken wins in May, there will be no extension of the cycle hire scheme.

Once the Olympics are over the tube chaos we’ve been experiencing will continue  and we’ll realise that, in fact, it was nothing to do with the Games in the first place. Just incompetence. On the upside we’ll see tube strikes to defend staffing levels and safety on the tube – which will have some effect.

There will be weeping and wailing in Whitehall by December as they realise all public services have been cut and there’s nothing left to close down. While there will be some genuine Big Society moments of the community stepping in and taking over libraries or nurseries, in general there will be a growing vacuum of essential services with few even replaced by the private sector.

There will be new free schools, mostly religious or ideological in nature, while mainstream education continues to feel the pinch – which will be particularly noticeable in school buildings. The teachers will win significant concessions on pensions, but that  ray of light will feel like pretty thin gruel.

On London’s economy more generally we’ll see the media and politicians continue to talk down the economy and it will be the poorest, most deprived areas that will suffer the most. While most Londoners will worry about the financial situation and unemployment will increase the main effect will be to keep people in jobs they might otherwise have left and reduce their spending.

Sadly there will be little recognition that we need to invest in our economy rather than cut it to the bone while a focus on job creation and, God forbid, a greener economic model will be as far out of reach as ever. However, let’s keep plugging away, sowing seeds that we may reap at a later date.

Readers’ suggestions

Dawn suggested a summer of “dangerous foxes” hysteria. Susan thought that new rules on housing benefit would see a sharp spike in evictions. While Heather felt the jazz dance was out of our reach at the Olympics but did think we’d win the rowing.