Donald and Elon’s friendship won’t see 2026

Elon Musk during a campaign rally for Donald Trump

Just a bit of fun and most of the time my predictions turn out to be wildly inaccurate, but God loves a trier.

So how did I do with last year’s column? A mixed bag. I predicted Sunak would go early and call the General Election, rather than wait until the autumn. That he did, but I suggested that Labour’s performance would be less emphatic than it turned out to be.

I was spot on with my suggestion that the SNP would plummet to single digits in terms of their Westminster representation, but to my abiding shame, I could not even begin to imagine that my own party, the Liberal Democrats would go on to have its best election in over a century, returning a staggering 72 MPs to the House of Commons, tripling our representation in Scotland and overhauling the Scottish Tories into the bargain.

I predicted Humza Yousaf would resign as first minister. I thought that would be as a result of the election defeat, but instead he brought down his own government through political miscalculation. I was wide with my prediction that he would be succeeded by Kate Forbes, and I was dead wrong about Trump losing the presidency. You win some you lose some. So, what of this year. Well, here goes nothing:

1: Economic growth will remain sluggish as businesses struggle under the weight of the National Insurance hike and Donald Trump’s protectionism, reinforcing the need to fix our broken relationship with our neighbours in Europe. 2: The Liberal Democrats and the Reform party will be the stand-out success stories of the English local government elections in May. This will prompt a further shift to the right for the Conservatives and Kemi Badenoch will not lead the Tories into 2026.

3: There will be at least one defection from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats in either the Scottish or UK Parliaments (or both).

4: Donald Trump and Elon Musk will not end 2025 on speaking terms. Cracks and fissures are already emerging in their marriage of convenience and Musk will overreach to the point of his banishment.

5: Sticking with Elon: the much talked about mega donation of $100 million to Farage’s Reform party will fail to materialise. The possibility of it will be used by the Trump administration as a means of keeping Kier Starmer on his toes, but Elon will grow bored with politics.

6: For all his talk of being able to broker a peace deal in 24 hours, Donald Trump will fail to end the war in Ukraine with Zelensky refusing to capitulate to Putin’s demands. The war will grind on for another year with reduced American support.

7: Relations with China will become more difficult. Beijing may try to test the US doctrine of “strategic ambiguity” in support for Taiwan through some overt act of aggression towards the island nation. The West will suddenly realise the depth of its reliance on China.

Whatever it has in store, I hope 2025 is good to you and those you care about. Lang may yer lum reek.

Alex Cole-Hamilton is Scottish Liberal Democrats leader and MSP for Edinburgh Western