L’Italia è vittoriosa

July 12, 2021 by Leave a comment

So, I finally got a sporting prediction correct, though it was a close-run thing. Most neutral observers agreed the Italians were worth their victory over the piece, but England did well to take it to penalties, and with a little more luck could have won.

What’s perhaps more interesting than the on-field action are the competing narratives around the effect that England’s good run has had on the national psyche. The optimistic liberal version – that the success of the racially and socially diverse squad has fostered an atmosphere of tolerance – is rather undercut by the racist abuse directed towards black members of the team from a section of their own fan base. The government’s clumsy attempts to appropriate the feel-good factor surrounding the tournament to bolster its fading domestic popularity look similarly out of place amongst ministers’ unsubtle dog-whistles to that same white-nationalist constituency.

The country may move on from this particular disappointment fairly quickly, as our attention shifts to getting through what promises to be some bumpy months ahead, but resolving these opposing conceptions of identity and belonging will take much longer, and require rather more in the way of political leadership than our current government seems able to provide.

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Euro 2020 prediction

July 10, 2021 by Leave a comment

After my tips for Euro 2012, and Euro 2016, turned out to be, well, less than 100% accurate, I thought I would give myself the best possible chance of picking the winner of this year’s pandemic-delayed tournament by waiting until I had only two teams to choose from.

So, Italy or England? It’s a tough call. To be honest I wasn’t really expecting either side to get past the last eight; if you’d twisted my arm before the first game kicked off I’d have put my money on France and Spain to make the final. Italy are certainly the better team technically, but England are no slouches, and they have home advantage, plus a confidence-boosting narrative of national redemption to drive them on.

The statistics would seem to favour the Italians, who are ahead 11-8 on past wins, with 8 draws; for games this century it’s 4-1 to Italy, with 2 draws, which were the last 2 games played, though both were friendlies. The last competitive game was at the 2014 World Cup, which finished 2-1 to the Italians.

However football at this level is difficult to predict; in a one-off game even a heavy underdog always has a chance. As we’ve noted before (in a post explaining away a woefully inaccurate World Cup forecast), that’s what makes the game so enchanting.

But predict I shall – Italy will prevail.

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2018 Forecast results

December 30, 2018 by Leave a comment

Our review of the year is on the way, but first let’s see how accurate the predictions we made back in January turned out to be:

Donald Trump will still be President of the United States at the end of 2018. There’s still a day to go, but it looks like I got this one right. Trump’s problems seem likely to multiply in the near future, but even if Mueller and the Democrats uncover enough evidence of malfeasance to impeach him ten times over, the Republican Senate will remain reluctant to convict. If his incompetence starts to hurt the economy too much there may be some face-saving deal whereby Mike Pence assumes actual power behind the scenes, but I’m willing to hazard a guess that Trump will end up seeing out his full term.

There will be another Brexit referendum. The jury is still out on this question, even though less than one hundred days remain before the UK is due to crash out of the EU. At the start of the year I thought that the matter would be settled by the summer, but I underestimated the degree to which our political class would prove unequal to the challenge of managing this self-induced crisis. A parliamentary vote on Theresa May’s proposed exit agreement is due in the new year, but this seems likely to deepen the divisions in the country rather than resolve them, so all outcomes, from no-deal to no-exit, remain on the table. I’ll hold off making any more forecasts on this topic for now; things may become a little clearer by the end of next month.

Germany will win the 2018 World Cup. There’s no way to spin this; I was spectacularly wrong, as Jogi Löw‘s much-fancied team had their worst result in a major tournament since 1938. I’ll need to do some more homework before Euro 2020.

Definitive proof of extraterrestrial life will be found by the end of 2018. Organics on Mars, an interstellar visitation, and alien lights over New York – I’ll give myself this one.

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Deutschland unter alles

June 27, 2018 by Leave a comment

The curse of SLS strikes again, as Germany, our tip for World Cup glory, ignominiously crash out in the first round.

I guess it’s early enough in the competition to make another pick, but, to be honest, I haven’t really been paying attention, so any prediction I make will be more or less arbitrary. My carefully considered choices haven’t been up to much though, so perhaps random is the way to go; [closes eyes, stabs finger at list] Switzerland! Hmm…

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Teutonic reliability

June 19, 2018 by Leave a comment

Mid-summer is almost upon us, so it seems like a good time to revisit my new year predictions, to see if they bear any likeness to how events are actually panning out.

My first forecast concerned Donald Trump’s likely tenure in the White House, and nothing has happened in the last few months to change my view that he’s going to be around for the foreseeable future. Sure, his venality, stupidity and cruelty are becoming ever more evident, but it’s equally clear that a big enough proportion of the US population, and their (Republican) elected representatives, just don’t care. Progressive fantasies of impeachment – delivered by unlikely liberal heroes the FBI – seem destined to remain just that, sadly.

What then of Brexit? The first part of my prediction – Theresa May’s government collapsing under the pressure of irreconcilable internal splits – looks like it may well come true, perhaps as early as this week, as the relatively sane sections of the Tory party try to head off a disastrously hard departure. There is no guarantee of fresh elections though, and even less certainty of a Labour victory, due to Jeremy Corbyn’s inexplicable inability to appreciate that opposition to Brexit is massively popular in his own party, and only slightly less so in the country at large. It’s equally possible that May will be replaced by some zealous leaver who will gleefully drive the country over the cliff-edge. I’m still just about able to convince myself that there might be a happy ending to this story, but it’s getting harder every day.

Oh well, on to lighter things. Germany for the World Cup? Despite the fact that they lost their opening game, with what most pundits agree was a shambolic display, I’m still backing Joachim Löw’s team to win the tournament, on the grounds that their bad spells are rarely prolonged.

Alien life? They have found organics on Mars, which is good enough for me…

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Futurama

January 13, 2018 by Leave a comment

Here at SLS we’ve tried our hands at prognostication more than a few times in the past, with generally disappointing results; we’ve erroneously assured readers that Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in for the Presidency (twice), confidently identified as winners teams in major sporting events who go on to exit at an early stage, advised against investing in dead-end companies like Google and Facebook, and completely misread the political mood of our own home nation. The only thing I can find that we actually got right was forecasting Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney, which didn’t exactly require Nostradamus-level predictive skills.

Still, it’s the start of a new year, so I thought it might be fun to put down a marker on the two big political questions of the day; at the very least, come December, we’ll be able to look back and laugh at our hopeless naivety.

First up: will Donald Trump still be President of the United States at the end of 2018? I think … yes. The reasoning behind this answer rests on a recognition that, while Trump’s behaviour may well provide a legal justification for his removal, by impeachment, or through application of the 25th Amendment, the decision to actually trigger these processes is a political one, and there’s no sign that a sufficiently large section of the Republican Party has the stomach for it. The arithmetic may change after the midterm elections of course, but given that Trump seems to have a solid electoral base who will stick with him no matter the outrage he provokes elsewhere, I just can’t see the numbers adding up. Naturally I hope that I’m wrong about this, and that the kickback seen in Alabama (fuelled by an energised left actually getting its supporters to the polls) becomes a nationwide phenomenon, giving the Democrats the majorities they need in the House and the Senate to carry an impeachment through, while also moving the whole centre of political gravity leftwards.

Next: is there going to be a second Brexit referendum? I think … yes. This is based less on political calculation, and more on gut feeling, particularly the general sentiment that the country is becoming ungovernable, and that the current administration cannot last. It’s possible to imagine a series of events involving a collapsed government, another election, Labour opting to campaign on the issue of giving the population a chance to vote on the final Brexit deal, and a relieved electorate seizing the opportunity to ditch the whole sorry business. There are, admittedly, large elements of wishful thinking in this, but it’s not completely impossible. The timescale is tight though – we won’t have to wait until December to see if I’m wrong about this; if there isn’t an election by the summer the exit process might well prove to be irreversible.

Finally: two bonus predictions – Germany to win the World Cup, and definitive proof of extraterrestrial life to be found before the year is out.

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Half way home

November 3, 2016 by Leave a comment

I must admit that I mentally composed an “Unlucky Cubs” post after they lost the second game at Wrigley Field, but, fair play to them, they dug out the wins to take it to a seventh game, though they couldn’t resist giving their long-suffering fans one more bout of anxiety in the decider by blowing a three-run lead in the bottom of the eighth and going to an extra inning, before finally emerging victorious.

I imagine the parties in the Windy City will go on for a while. I’m just hoping that one particular Cubs fan has another reason to celebrate next week too…

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How ’bout them Cubs?

October 27, 2016 by Leave a comment

I spent a week or so in Chicago back in the early 90s, 92 I think it was. I have a lot of fond memories of that trip; early morning walks along the shore of Lake Michigan, late night music shows, great steaks, and a visit to the charming, ivy-clad arena of Wrigley Field.

I’m not a big baseball fan, but I did enjoy the game that night, or at least I enjoyed chatting to the fans sitting around me in the cheap seats, all of whom were keen to school an ignorant foreigner on the finer points of the sport, though none of them seemed to be paying a huge amount of attention to what was actually going on on the field. I think the Cubs lost, but that didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits, and I ended up going out for a few beers with the locals. I have a vague recollection of a bar with a goat-related name – possibly “The Goat” – which years later I realised was probably a reference to the infamous curse. The night ended with me sleeping on the sidewalk because I had missed the curfew at the youth hostel, which wasn’t a joke in Chicago in April, but it felt like it was worth it.

Anyway, it’s good to see the Cubs finally back in the World Series, though it’s not looking too promising for them so far. I hope they turn it around, and give those fans who welcomed me 25 years ago something to cheer about.

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Obscure future

July 11, 2016 by Leave a comment

Well, for about 109 minutes there it looked like I might have finally produced an accurate football tournament prediction, but no luck, for me nor France.

My political forecasting skills are not much better; despite my confident assertion that Boris Johnson would be the next Prime Minister he didn’t even make it on to the ballot. Instead we are to have a female premier, which sounds like it should be progressive, but neither Theresa May nor Andrea Leadsom are exactly hard-core feminists, so perhaps not.

There had been talk of an early election, but that possibility seems to be receding, and with it hopes that Brexit could be averted by some sort of democratic means. There are a couple of legal cases pending that seek to overturn the referendum result, but, aghast as I was at the leave vote, I would hesitate to change the outcome by such a method, since it would only drive already alienated sections of the population into the arms of the far-right.

I guess we just have to play the long game; as the Chilcot Report has shown, progressive positions are usually vindicated with the passage of time, even if it is years too late to make any difference.

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Euro 2016 forecast

June 29, 2016 by Leave a comment

On a lighter note, the other big question in Europe yet to be resolved is that of which team will emerge victorious in Euro 2016. Since my record of predicting the winners of big tournaments is little short of woeful, I’ve waited until the quarter-final lineup has been finalised before hazarding a guess – France to beat Belgium in the final. So put your money on Iceland…

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