Predictions for 2011

Well, here goes:

• The College of Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church will use their considerable intelligence, wit, guile and blogs to avoid expressing an opinion about anything at all. Oh, except one thing – that they think its OK to discriminate against gay people. (Which in private most of them will continue to say is a terrible thing that they don’t actually agree with).
• The Coalition in Westminster will survive the year. (But probably not for much longer).
• The Archbishop of Canterbury will step down in the second half of the year. His place will be taken by John Sentamu. The new Archbishop of York will be Jim Jones, currently Bishop of Liverpool. The Bishop of London will remain as Bishop of London, despite making a significant contribution to the Royal Wedding as Chief Tiara Bearer.
• Debate about the House of Lords will make the C of E bishops who belong to it seem increasingly vulnerable. They will be astonished to discover that not everyone in the country values their place in the legislature. Most will not realise that not everyone in the churches values their place in the legislature.
• The Labour Party will end the year with a Milliband leading it.
• The Scottish Parliamentary Elections will result in a Labour First Minister. A Labour-Green coalition will be much talked about but not happen because the Greens will refuse to do a deal. The Greens will have a good election and gain more seats from the List votes. The Liberal Democrats in Scotland will have their worst night in many a year.
• The Anglican Communion will survive another year in name but not in reality.
• British troops will remain in Afghanistan.
• The AV referendum will be lost. However it will stir up interest in electoral reform and hasten the reform of the Lords. AV supporters will claim that people rejected it because they want proper PR.
• The Church of Scotland will have a rocky General Assembly with a moderately conservative report from their Special Commission. (No more gay ministers, no questions to be asked about sexuality of office bearers but also no removing anyone currently in any post on the grounds of their sexuality).
• No straight liberal in the church will feel the need to sacrifice anything at all for the gay friends they purport to support.

You can check out my predictions for last year here.

What do you think?