For Competition 3430 you were invited to write a rhyming prophecy for 2026.
Joe Houlihan’s closing couplet encapsulates the tenor of the entry:
Next year is like this year, but much, much worse:
So take a stiff brandy and call for nurse.
But while the mood was downbeat, the standard was cheering and the entries below earn their authors £25 John Lewis vouchers. Happy New Year, one and all.
When you wake up in bed with a harrowing head
and your brain is assaulted by bricks
you’re beginning to mourn that you partied ’til dawn
as you welcomed in Year ’26.
The barometer’s falling, the cold is appalling,
the sky is as dark as the devil,
the rainfall is thudding and everywhere’s flooding,
the rivers have burst past their level.
But before you invest in a good thermal vest
the temperature leaps to extremes
and you’re heading pell-mell for a heatwave from hell
as the atmosphere simmers and steams.
Cost of living is rising, stealth tax paralysing,
no hardships, it seems, have diminished,
so I’ll go back to bed, hibernating instead
and I’ll sleep ’til this new year is finished.
Sylvia Fairley
’26! – and cease these quibbles –
Spells a poor year for your sibyls:
Those who’ll get it in their necks
(Say I) include the haruspex,
The hierophant and part-time prophet.
The future tells them, oh come off it.
The pundit cannot do a high kick,
As V. Shevchenko’s not a psychic –
To read the runes like Mother Shipton?
Ah, what banana skins she slipped on! –
Next year remains a clouded glass
Where countless futures come to pass –
The world is run by tinpot showmen:
What augur reads their bloody omens?
War and peace? Confound this stanza!
(Though Jan will see a sales bonanza.)
Bill Greenwell
’26 was bitter-born, in debt and ice and rain,
And only Lammy (later Lord) could think away the pain:
‘I see how we may pay our way…!’
He cried, ‘And be titanic!
We’ll marry Works and Pensions
To the MOD – Don’t Panic!’
At one stroke – budgets balancing,
And more battalions than Beijing;
This conscription-like prescription bade the nation resurrect:
Here, Pensioners with 105s: ‘Load up! Correct! Correct!’
There, job seekers who sought no more,
In debit universal:
Their sergeants knew what they were for
And helped with this reversal;
And Pips were flipped for battleships, confounding knavish tricks,
When Lammy saved the nation, back in 2026
Nick Syrett
I see, in 2026
An end to British politics
As flags replace our squabbling MPs.
No partisan, loquacious spats
Or boisterously disputed stats,
Just uncontested flutter on the breeze.
In 2026, you’ll find,
Flags are the things you’ll get behind,
Since they won’t bring forth policies or Bills.
These abstract, patriotic cloths
Will draw you, as a bulb does moths,
To see in them a cure for social ills.
In ’26, I prophecy,
Red and white flags against blue sky,
Will signal to the yearning proles
That if there’s hope, it flies up poles.
Adrian Fry
Dear ’26! A brilliant-bright New Year:
Jeremy Corbyn’s tipped to star in Traitors.
A retro-fashion TV show (Top Gear)
sets a new stye for men: tall hats and gaiters.
The Turner Prize? – scooped by a Burmese cat,
whose dead-shrew installation wows the press.
President Trump proclaims the earth is flat.
The Greens pledge aid for monsters in Loch Ness.
An AI novel wins the Booker Prize:
Daily Mail headline – ‘It’s The Greatest Ever!’
Potato chips are now called English Fries
and cryptic crosswords banned (for being too clever).
Angel Delight’s the latest super-food.
Birl’s the new word, replacing ‘girl’ and ‘boy’
All High Court judges have to be tattooed.
Liz Truss will head the BBC. What joy!
D.A. Prince
Last year I dreamed there’d be an end to war.
We’re talking swords to ploughshares, wells from spears.
Predicted much the same the year before
But this year, to protect myself from tears
I’ll speak of someone special, someone born
The Prince of Peace and Love, the Mighty Quinn –
This is the year Aquarius will dawn!
He’ll tariff Hate, he’ll teach the world to sing
Of wars he’s stopped, and all the many more:
Twixt Vlad and Vlod, twixt Corbyn and Sultana,
Coleen, Rebekah, me and Jim next door –
The glorious dawning of the Pax Trumpiana!
A presidential pardon ends the war
With Satan, then he’ll land that Nobel Prize.
With God? A trade deal to repeal the law
Of gravity, for Air-Force Pig-That-Flies.
David Silverman
No. 3433: Dear John
You are invited to submit a Dear John letter in the style of a well-known writer. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to competition@spectator.co.uk by midday on 14 January.
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