Biden won’t run, Labour won’t win a landslide, Middle East may find peace

Optimism is currently in short supply – but after a disastrous year, there must be hope for 2024

Source - Daily Telegraph 30/12/23

It is the custom of this column at the turn of each year to make negative predictions. That is, to put forward things that may have been expected to happen but will not. At the end of what has been one of the most depressing twelve month periods that most of us can recall, this lot of anti-predictions is deliberately skewed in the direction of hope and optimism while still, I sincerely believe, remaining credible.

First, Joe Biden will not run for a second term in the White House. This cannot be announced – or even admitted to be under consideration – until very late in the day since that would instantly render him a lame duck president. This would be very dangerous in the present global circumstances. With wars currently underway in two critical regions, the leader of the free world cannot become irrelevant and powerless. It will be easy enough when the right moment arrives to make use of Biden’s state of health to excuse a “sudden” change of plan. Such a change is now imperative because of the real possibility that he could lose the presidency to Donald Trump which would be a moral catastrophe.

For those who have not been paying close attention, it is important to note that Trump’s campaign rhetoric has moved to a very dark place, way beyond the familiar puerile name-calling and traducing of the Constitution.

He is now saying to his followers (whom he describes as those “who have been wronged and betrayed”), “I am your retribution”, and further, in what could be seen as a blasphemous parody of the Christian message, “I am being indicted for you”.

Note: he is no longer claiming simply that he speaks for them, but that he is the embodiment of their victimhood.

This is not populist rant anymore: it is the language of a mystical cult. Then add to that his most recent observation that mass migration is “poisoning the blood” of America. This is not only a clear plagiarism of the most infamous political message of the last century but an absurd claim to make about a country whose population has no shared historical bloodline.

So yes, it is imperative that Biden be replaced with a candidate who can defeat this appalling phenomenon - and we have to believe that there are already steps to do so in operation.

Second: the general election will not produce a Labour landslide. The best result they can hope for is a working majority but it is quite possible that they will need the support of the Liberal Democrats and possibly even the much-diminished Scottish Nationalists, to govern.

I must make clear at this point that I have had, in my commentating career, an uncanny ability to predict the most apparently unlikely outcomes of general elections. I foresaw even the famous 1992 result in which John Major led the Conservatives to victory when Labour had so confidently expected to triumph that they held their celebration rally before polling day.

The newspaper for which I then wrote (not this one) refused to allow me to put this prediction in print because it seemed so preposterous.

But I was proved right, and my judgement was based on a simple fact. I simply could not see Neil Kinnock - decent and brave man though he was - as Prime Minister and did not believe that the electorate would either.

Then in 2015, when everyone was expecting a Labour win, I correctly predicted the opposite. After that one, the successful Tory team called me into Downing Street to ask the obvious question: “How did you know?”

Answer: I didn’t know anything that anybody else didn’t know. I just could not see Ed Miliband as Prime Minister. That’s it. That’s the secret. And right now I cannot see Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.

If he gets the disappointing result that I expect, it will not be because he failed to offer convincing (or any) policies that could be remedies for the country’s problems but because he has only one facial expression - the blank, startled gaze of a badger in the headlights - and no perceptible sense of humour.

Third: the West will not solve the crisis in the Middle East because the solution is not within its power.

For all the talk of proxy war, it is the Arab nations which border the disputed territory which are most directly affected by it and who will therefore take responsibility for a resolution. There is a clear reason why none of the neighbouring countries are taking refugees from Gaza: they do not wish to import the Hamas problem.

Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are actively seeking recognition as reliable participants in the modern world. They are fervently courting Western influence with their vast fortunes - investing in Western sport, media outlets and cultural institutions.

Abu Dhabi hopes to buy this newspaper. Saudi Arabia is funding film festivals and is rumoured to be planning the purchase of a major Hollywood studio.

These nations do not wish to be seen as havens for terrorists or to have their governments and their tourism industries destabilised by people who might be implicated in murderous rebellion.

An agreement on the Abraham Accords which might have put the seal on this new era in the region was thought to be imminent – which is almost certainly what provoked Hamas into a last desperate, nihilistic move. Tellingly, it is Iran - not an Arab country - which supports Hamas, with the enthusiastic connivance of Putin who will go to any anarchic lengths to disrupt what he sees as Western hegemony.

There is some talk now of Egypt preparing a peace plan which it will propose to Israel and Hamas. Apart from the fact that it apparently consists of three stages, it is keeping the details of this project completely secret which suggests that it is a genuine attempt to broker a deal. If that is true and the plan works, we may soon be living in a different – and possibly safer – world.