2025 was a disastrous year — economically, politically and morally.
But the consequences of that failure are only just beginning to arrive.
In this video, I ask a simple but uncomfortable question: who is going to pay the price in 2026?
Austerity by design is still with us. Fiscal rules are still being used to override human need. Markets are still prioritised over care. And the result is that credibility is draining from politics across the UK and beyond.
I look at who is likely to fall from power — in the UK, in the US, and internationally — and why neoliberal authority is finally collapsing under the weight of its own failures. I also ask whether anyone might emerge with a credible alternative, and what that would require in economic terms.
2026 will not be an easy year. But it may be the year when technocratic politics finally runs out of road.
What do you think? Is 2026 the year when politics is forced to change?
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
2026 is nearly upon us.
I'm delighted to see the back of 2025. If the term a shit year was ever created for any year in history, then maybe it was 2025.
A year ago, we thought it was going to be bad, and it was at least as bad as we expected.
But let's stop moaning about what has been, and let me talk about what will be.
Who is going to have a bad 2026? Because when I look at it in politics, in power and in pain, this is not going to be a great year. Sorry to tell you that, but I'm not starting the year on a high note. I'm not predicting, I'm just talking about the consequences of the way the world is and who is going to pay the price for the current political failure that we're seeing all around us.
2026 will not, I admit, be evenly painful. Policy choices will create the losers, and some groups are being set up to fail. At the same time, some politicians are reaching the end of the road. Let's explore.
Those who are going to lose out badly are those whom neoliberalism always chooses to suffer. We are living through austerity by design.
There are those facing rising prices and falling services, and they are being told there is no money yet again to relieve the problems that they face, and these are the people who motivate me to speak out here on this channel.
The government are still choosing to restrain the services that these people need. Fiscal rules are still being used to trump human need, and markets are still prioritised over care. Now, all of that is a political choice, and those who will suffer are deliberately chosen by those in power to ensure that they do.
And as a consequence, this bad policy is actually going to begin to catch up with our politicians. Authority drains when credibility goes, and I think that austerity has finally done that for neoliberalism. Its authority is declining. 2026 will then be the year of political reckoning. We might all be suffering because of the choices that are being made by our politicians, but quite a number of them are already wobbling, and many will be toppled from their perches.
Across the pond, of course, Donald Trump is visibly deteriorating. He is literally physically declining. It is obvious that he has some form of mental cognition problem, and his decision-making capacity is obviously failing. But even though this could result in the tipping of the balance with regard to his future - and remember there is a 25th Amendment to the US Constitution that does allow a president to be replaced if they are unable to do their duties - just think about the consequences.
As the midterms loom large and as Trump gets more and more erratic, the Republicans are going to want some distance between him and them.
We're already seeing this. The MAGA - the Make America Great Again movement - are getting more and more angry with what Trump is doing.
And the more rational of the Republicans, and I know that is stretching credibility to link together the word Republican and rational at the moment, but the more rational ones are seeking that distance already. They're going to want to be rid of Trump before the midterms because they don't want to be tainted by who and what he is.
So they're going to take the risk. They're going to topple Trump. I suspect June is the month of danger for him. Why? Because it's far enough away from the midterms for people to have noted that action has taken place.
Who else will fall from power this coming June? Keir Starmer, along with Rachel Reeves, who will join him in departing from Downing Street, in my opinion. The English local election results for Labour will be grim. Scotland and Wales will compound the damage. In fact, in Wales, I suspect that Labour will become history, when for a century they could not lose an election, whatever they did.
In Scotland, the expectation was that Labour might become the largest party, and instead, the only point of discussion now left there is by how much they will lose. The SNP and the independence movement is going to be very much in control of Scotland come June 2026.
Starmer's authority inside the party will evaporate as a result. He will be on his way out. Labour is going to literally fall apart. They will pay the price for their fiscal orthodoxy, and although Starmer will claim that he's done everything that is required, MPs in fear of their seats will say, enough is enough, and get rid of him, and Reeves and maybe some others as well. But the question is, who is the successor? I put it to you; there is none.
Don't pretend that Andy Burnham is some great person waiting in the wings. We saw him try to be a leader in 2015, and I think he even tried earlier than that. He was no good then. He is no good now. He's neoliberal to his core. The fact that he's managed to run Manchester with no effective opposition because seven of the eight councils over which he governs are all Labour and totally obsequious is not proof that he could do anything better on the national stage. There is no settled economic alternative in Labour. It's a party hollowed out by caution, and that is the price of refusing to change the narrative, and so Labour will also be departing the scene. It will just be delaying it by appointing a new leader sometime, I suspect in June 2026.
Meanwhile, who else is going to have a bad year? I'm going to be a little out on a limb here and say, I think Nigel Farage is. He might be riding high in the polls for now, but the damage is being seen. His councils are useless. That in Cornwall has collapsed. They had a majority of seats when they had the election in May 2025, but now they can't form an administration. Elsewhere, they have lost up to 20% of their members in some of the councils where they were elected, again, only months ago. They are simply underperforming, and they aren't going to actually deliver on the promises they made because those promises have collided with reality, and council tax cuts aren't going to materialise as a result.
Hype cannot survive contact with governance is the point. I'm making, and voters are noticing that.
They're also noticing the fact that the allegations of racism are sticking in the case of Farage, and whilst I'm not in any way suggesting that Reform will disappear in 2026, because I don't think it will, and I do think it will run a big challenge in the local elections in that year, and also in Wales and Scotland, I do think it is the year when the myth will be punctured. Don't believe that Reform is going to be the dominant force by 2029.
Nor will the Tories merge with Reform in 2026. Farage will not touch their record. They are, anyway, a bunch of losers. Why would he want them? Why would he want to lumber his party with these people who frankly have done nothing to solve any problem in this country for so long?
So the Tories are going to continue to drift towards irrelevance. The local members may defect to Reform, but the party itself is going to fizzle out, and even if Badenoch goes and is replaced by Jenrick, which is a horrible thought and one I really don't want to contemplate, but which could also happen in June after those local election results, the brand is broken anyway. The responsibility for failure is going to stick with the party, whoever is in charge, and oblivion is a process, not an event, and that process is well underway.
Is somebody going to have a good year? Well, Zack Polanski looks as though he could do. The Greens are doing well, but I offer a note of caution. As has been evidenced in discussion on my blog, Zack Polanski is facing internal division within the Greens. Some are saying he's too left-wing. Others are saying he's not green enough, and there are people who are arguing over economic policy, some trying to make sure that the old John McDonnell fiscal rules are put into place. Others are arguing, , As I would, that modern monetary theory must be the basis for going forward.
The point is the media scrutiny on Zack Polanski is only going to intensify. When he's offering the only left-of-centre alternative in England in particular, that is inevitably going to be the case.
There is nobody else in the field now. Your Party is going to go anywhere, that's my prediction. It's too confused, people don't trust it. People don't believe it can sort itself out, and they're not going to get any significant political ranking as a result, so Zack Polanski is the person everyone's going to be looking at. Will he survive the pressure? I don't know. That's important; could they fracture even? Yes, that's a possibility. We have seen the stresses in the Greens in Scotland. If you don't follow that, well, it's been a difficult time, or they could mature, and that's my point, they could. Their survival will, however, depend, I think, on one thing, and that is economic clarity to explain their ideas and to make it clear how they can deliver on the promise of a brighter future. A lot hangs on them getting this right.
Lib Dems, meanwhile, will remain permanently niche. The permanent also-rans and 2026 is offering very little change for them. They will remain in existence, but for them, relevance will remain elusive.
That's my forecast for the UK for 2026: a difficult year, and the only potential winners may be the Greens, but definitely the SNP, and Plaid Cymru. They are going to be riding high. For the rest, difficult times ahead, and therefore, for us as well: we're going to have the challenge of working out what we want and who we want and how we want them to do things. That's one of the themes for this channel in the coming year.
But of course, the world is not made up just of the UK. Outside the UK, Ukraine will not see peace, is my prediction. Why? That's because Europe doesn't want it. Whatever they say, the leaders of Europe are very happy that Ukraine is still at war with Russia. Why? Because they don't want Russia to be at war with them, and once Russia resolves its conflict in Ukraine, which is costing hundreds of thousands of dead Russians, and that's the tragedy of the whole thing, then Russia would have the reserves to think about spreading elsewhere. So we have to recognise the reality that Ukraine is paying a heavy price for us all, and that will continue. I can't see a way out of that.
Nor do I see an end to conflict in Gaza. Israel will not achieve the resolution that he claims is possible. The peace programme which Donald Trump has put in place is a farce; there is no one who can deliver it, and it isn't taking into consideration the needs of the people of Gaza themselves, and therefore it will be a disaster, and the human catastrophe will continue.
Moral failure compounds, political failure here, and I have no answers at present because the players around the scene are still there. Until we get rid of Trump, until we get rid of Netanyahu, until literally time might eliminate both of them, then we are in deep trouble and that moral failure will continue.
My heart bleeds for Gaza. It has done for a long time; whose wouldn't? I hope for a brighter future, but I don't really see much changing in 2026, and I don't think a change of US presidency will be of any benefit either.
So, who might have a good year? I've already mentioned: Scotland and Wales could have hope. Hope in the form of new governments that they didn't really anticipate, which can talk about the possibility of building new systems for each country in a way that might lead to independence, and which I would welcome if it did. They are being offered a way out and not just a change of manager. They, in other words, have something available to them, which is almost absent elsewhere in politics, and that is a vision. That's why they might have a good year.
Everywhere else, austerity is going to continue to backfire. Technocratic politics is collapsing, but as yet no one has got an answer to the managed decline, which it is delivering. 2026 is when the bills are going to come in, and we're going to ask the question about how will they be settled in political terms, because that is obviously what is going to happen, but this will be a strange year, a painful year, a year of reckoning for politics and a reminder that economics is all about care and that focusing on financial issues is never going to provide the answer. But we are going to have to go through this pain before you reach something which is better.
The consequence is, we must tell a different economic story, one based upon capability, and not constraint, and on care and not markets, and on democracy and not fear, and that's what I'll be doing in 2026. It's going to be difficult, but this is also an opportunity, and I'm going to try to grab it.
What do you think? Do you believe that 2026 could be the year of political change? There's a poll down below. Let us know.
Poll
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Its not just neoliberalism that is losing its authority, its Government and the nation state.
Look at the crisis in the Criminal Justice system, not exactly an indication that a nation is being ‘governed’
How easy will ot be to get back to an administration which is pro active, in control and competent? I suggest not very
This issue – societal capital – is core to the politics of care.
If 2026 does mark the start of Ref***’s decline then that is a positive – a small one but positive nonetheless.
But, we need governments who will govern for everyone and not just the powerful and wealthy and until that haooens the likes of Ref*** will always be there to create blame, division and anger.
I want to finish by wishing you (Richard) and your family along with all the readers of this blog and your respective families a Happy New Year. If any of you are celebrating it tomorrow night, have a good night
Craig
FThabks, Craig. And much to agree with.
I think that what we will continue to see is what you state – further degradation across many areas of life.
However, I remain profoundly pessimistic that this will bring about any real change soon or at all. This is based on the human capacity to adapt as much as anything.
But the real cause is that politics I think has ceased to function. Politics – the motor of real change – has gone missing in action. It’s as Tony Judt pointed out in around 2010: we just don’t know how to talk about those things anymore. And as a result of that we don’t know how to initiate change. We now seem to be in the politics of inevitability as Tim Snyder has pointed out. Many – whether they know it or not – have accepted death and just want the palliative to be provided by the market on their way out.
Just as we know that there are actually financial resources to solve practical problems that are not being used, there are also resources for change management that are not being used whilst zero sum political games are played instead. And as you have copiously noted, it is that lack of courage at the political level that is preventing the new from being born.
The only way I think this can be addressed is through cogent planning and strategy – the lack of which is rampantly absent in politics at the moment, especially progressive politics. Yet look at how BREXIT was won? How Corbyn was brought down? Why should the Devil have all the best tunes? Why is it that only evil can be allowed to be radical? Who wrote these ‘rules’?
No one wrote those rules.
As you say, we adapted to them.
Where I disagree with you is that we do not need to continue them: that is wholly unnecessary.
I’m not aware that I am advocating anything at this stage other than some real planning for change. I am reflecting on the ways and means by which we got here and how even the most mild of change was somehow thwarted (Corbyn was by no mans as radical as he made out). And then looking at what may be a pivot by voters toward Polanski – the unmet need of many for a genuinely nicer world – maybe the care agenda even.
My emphasis is on acknowledging the strengths of the dark arts of the Right, but only insofar as how to defend and counter them. That would be a sensible thing to do and an acceptance of reality?
Acknowledging the power and even the guile of your opponent does not mean you are stooping to their level. And neither is allowing for the weakness of those we say we want to provide relief to. I just see these processes as empowering ourselves? Empowering ourselves by acknowledging how good humans can be at utilizing that which is in pursuit of the bad. In a nutshell, I accept Gramsci’s thesis that there is a kernel of truth in most arguments? Isn’t good politics all about resolving things like that?
I do not underestimate the opposition, I assure you.
I also know they serve the interests of very few people.
I think that will, eventually, be rumbled.
[…] a note in this morning's video, Scotland and Wales are the only parts of the UK where there is some sign of new political hope at […]
Interesting analysis Richard. I agree with your comments on Farage and Reform and note that the Conservatives don’t even merit a mention. With the 2 main parties imploding and Britain in a mess it’s obvious that the SNP and Plaid Cymru will do well.
I disagree with your comments on the Greens. I think the leadership in terms of Zack, Rachel and Mothin are in alignment and each are playing to their strengths. Yes the party now needs to grow up and find a democratic way to develop policy that doesn’t leave them wide open to criticism because an old policy can e found that is clearly ridiculous. However, as I’ve previously stated it is a broad party that meets around environmental issues and largely also around issues of social justice. There have always been environmentalists who are not explicitly left wing, but as political compass shows it is overwhelmingly a left wing party, Zack is just expressing it in a much more direct way. I expect the Greens to do very well in this year’s local elections covering the big urban councils and I see 2026 as the year they develop better strategies for targeting and campaigning for many more seats. They are at that tipping point of being seen as a viable winner and no longer a wasted vote and with Labour imploding and Farage being exposed for what he is, I think even those who are less keen on Zack will rally behind him. He is certainly getting the media exposure the Greens failed to get up until now and is not scared to stand up to those who are critical of him.
I am hopeful for Zack and the Greens. I have to have hope. My words are risk analysis, and should be read as such.
That’s good to hear. I am particularly hopeful that he is motivating young adults who feel so pessimistic they haven’t bothered vote or engage in politics. These people have energy to be harnessed and I’m tired of politics following the grey vote (even though I am entering this demographic). My big concern is that we are becoming so inhospitable to our younger adults that we will continue to have a massive brain drain of those like doctors we need.
Word I am getting is that he is motivating young activists.
I saw this in the Guardian last night.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/29/number-people-britons-must-be-born-in-uk-rising-study. A survey for the Institute for Public Policy Research
but in the text was this;
“When asked what made a good British citizen, the most popular answers were obeying the law, which was chosen by 64% of those polled, raising children to be kind (62%) and working hard (48%). Just 8% said it involved sticking up for British-born people above other groups, and 3% said it involved having white skin.
When asked what would make them proud of the country in a decade’s time, people prioritised good public services and quality of life: 69% said a well-functioning NHS, 53% cited affordability and 36% housing. Significantly fewer prioritised reductions in immigration (28%) or ethnic diversity (13%).”
There is lots of scope for a politics of care and community. There seem to be 20-30% of Fascist friendly voters but no more than that and the majority still have a concern for the society in which we live and neo-liberalism is basically about the individual.
There are grounds for hope.
Indeed
And thanks
Whilst it seems highly doubtful, even over the Green Party’s moon, will ordinary working people discover AI during this coming year based on the following argument?
A major failing in the UK is one of not understanding the country’s money, or means of exchange, creation process in terms of base and broad money. There are two processes of creation, private and public, in which the former needs the latter to be in place first. Use AI to ask the question “Do licenced banks need access to state base money to create broad money?” to understand this.
You’ll get something like the following answer:-
“Yes, licensed banks do need access to state base money (central bank reserves and physical currency) to create broad money, but this is for operational and regulatory purposes, not as a direct prerequisite for each loan.”
Then do the same by asking “Does the state create new money in the economy by simultaneously increasing base and broad money?”
You’ll get something like the following response:-
“Yes, in modern economies, when the state (government) spends, it actually creates new money by increasing both base money (central bank reserves) and broad money (bank deposits) simultaneously, contrary to the popular idea that it just shifts existing funds; this process injects new purchasing power into the economy, boosting economic activity, but needs careful management to avoid inflation.”
Finally, use AI to ask “Does the creation of too much broad and base money always trigger inflation?”
You’ll get something like the following response:-
“No, the creation of broad and base money faster than the output of goods and services does not always trigger inflation, especially in the short term. While this is the classic economic prediction (known as the Quantity Theory of Money), real-world conditions can disrupt this link.”
Thanks
I voted for authoritarian drift – well, not FOR it, but that it would happen.
Firstly, because it has already happened – in USA, Germany, Hungary, and in UK with some very illiberal legislation and behaviour. Starmer IS an authoritarian (and dishonest/deceitful), in both his party and as PM. Protest will not be tolerated.
Secondly, the global climate news is producing global instability, extreme weather, population movement, financial instability, conflict, on top of that caused already by pleonexia.
Our lives are increasingly under central digital surveillance and control.
When power feels insecure, it clamps down. It has the digital tech, the paramilitary force, the legislation, and the political will to clamp down heavily on dissent and is doing so right now in the UK.
Dissenting individuals and organisations need to prepare. To distribute our lives not centralise them. To avoid big tech. To go Open Source. To minimise our exposure to surveillance. To buy a spare PAYG non smart phone with limited contacts on it for certain activities where you might experience unlawful detention. To think twice about what tech you carry over international borders and what passport you use if you have a choice. To look at your social media posting, privacy & deletion policy. To consider social media and encrypted messaging services not owned by an oligarch.To stop trusting government or big commerce (if we still do) because they are untrustworthy and also incompetent. To learn some basic legal first aid about the rights we still have.
I started thinking like this around 2008, due to my personal experiences then in privacy campaigning. My concern has grown every year since.
To do all this, without caving in to fear or paranoia or extremism.
But also to co-operate with diverse good people, so that this authoritarian trend can be
– Recognised
– Halted
– Reversed
for the good of our neighbours, those next door and those on the otherside of the planet.
As a sign of how nasty this country has got, consider this Daily Heil vomit.
https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2025/12/29/daily-mail-jewish-caricature-zack-polanski/
Suddenly the crudest sort of real antisemitism is mainstream again – and we are back with Lord Rothermere’s fascism of the 1930’s.
We stopped it then.
We can and will stop it now.
KUTGW!
WWW!
Thanks
[…] a note in this morning's video, Scotland and Wales are the only parts of the UK where there is some sign of new political hope at […]
Our politics have become more and more corrupt over recent years – more dependent on corrupt money to even function as a system, now that parties are not mass membership organisations funded by members subscriptions.
All leading politicians and certainly the ‘two main parties’- seem to think this is fine – while local councillors and civil servants have to reject any gifts. Commentators hadn’t much much to say about the proposed £9m donation to Reform UK by Christopher Harborne, other than to marvel that it was so large.
If Polanski launched a campaign to clean up politics and outlaw all large donations, 2nd jobs, bribery for honours, revolving doors and beef up the watchdogs – there might be some hope – if only in getting other parties to respond.
The Green Party already has very strict rules on who it can accept donations from and I’m not aware of any of the MPs having second jobs etc. Maybe you’re suggesting they need to publicise this more?
You wrote “But the question is, who is the successor? I put it to you; there is none.”
There may be no stand-out potential leader of Labour but, maybe the Party could do worse than Clive Lewis MP. I have been donating towards his efforts to get at least one water company renationalized.
Today he wrote:
“Our democracy is being weakened. Climate breakdown is accelerating. The far right is growing louder. And in the sixth richest country in the world, millions of people are being pushed deeper into hardship.
We’re told we’re in a cost-of-living crisis. But that never quite rang true to me. What we’re really living through is a cost of greed crisis. Every day, someone takes a little more. Higher energy bills, water bills, rent and food prices. Billionaires grow richer, private equity tightens its grip on our essential services, and the public is left paying more for less.
Nowhere does that feel more wrong than with water. Privatisation has left us with polluted rivers, failing infrastructure, rising bills and our future water supply at risk. It is a strange and uncomfortable truth that we now rent one of our most basic public services so investors can turn a profit. I’ve challenged this rip-off system again and again, including by calling out the role this Government plays in it.
From inviting BlackRock into industrial strategy, to handing NHS data infrastructure to Oracle, to expanding surveillance powers while surrounding itself with corporate lobbyists.
The government is creating tools that an authoritarian right would not need to invent later; it would only need to inherit them.
Earlier this year, I gave a memorial lecture in honour of Robin Cook. His integrity and moral courage are badly needed right now. Without them, democratic consent falls apart.”
I don’t know Lewis well but I like his policies and his efforts.
I do know Clive, well enough to call him a friend.
He’s a good guy. Could he lead Labour? I do not know. But he is vastly better than most in the Cabinet.