My predictions for 2011 :-(

Sad Face Cone Head Bath
Originally uploaded by Edgar Sousa

I’m afraid that my predictions for 2011 weren’t that great:

1. There will be a general election in Denmark. The Social Democrats and SF will form a minority government, which will quickly get into serious trouble trying to carry out their legislative programme. Wrong: After the election, the Social Liberals entered the government, too, and so far they’re managing to govern.
2. There won’t be a general election in the UK, but the LibDems will get more and more worried about their lack of support in the opinion polls. Not right: Of course there was no election, but the LibDems seem quite relaxed.
3. In Scotland, Labour will win the election but will be unable to find a coalition partner, so they’ll form a minority government. Wrong: The SNP won a landslide victory and formed a majority government. (I’m actually quite happy about being wrong here!)
4. The outcome of the AV referendum will be Yes (but it’ll be a narrow victory). Wrong: The outcome was a resounding No.
5. There’ll be snow on the ground in Scotland for most of the time until the end of March. We’ll then have a warm and sunny early summer, but late summer and autumn will be cold and wet, and we’ll have another white Christmas. Almost right: I got most of the year right, but Christmas wasn’t white.
6. Facebook will get serious competition, but they won’t be overtaken yet as the default social networking site. Right: Google+ got off to a good start, but didn’t manage to chuck Facebook off the throne.
7. The best-selling tablet computer towards the end of 2011 won’t be the iPad. Wrong: Although there are more and more competitors, the iPad still rules the tablet market.
8. Economically, Germany will start pulling the Eurozone out of the slump, but there’ll be more bad news from the US. There won’t be any sovereign defaults (yet). Wrong-ish: Germany was doing OK initially, but then ground to a halt again. The Eurozone is doing worse than a year ago. News from the US are mixed. But at least I was right about the sovereign defaults.
9. Petrol prices will reach £1.50 per litre. Wrong: I think they got as high as £1.45, but prices then fell back a bit again.
10. Neither Denmark nor Scotland will qualify for the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship. Wrong: Denmark managed to qualify, although Scotland didn’t.

I think a lesson to learn from this is not to put so many different predictions into each item – it’s too likely to get half of it right, which makes it pretty hard to assess later.