The Guardian begins the year by 'ask[ing] leading thinkers to offer their predictions'. Fair enough. Settle down and read these leading thinkers. Only thing is, you might be surprised to find that one of them is... Madeleine Bunting.
Well, you think you've seen everything, but you haven't until you have. Or maybe it's a just for a laugh. In any case Bunting's shot at an idea that 'will shape the coming year' is that of the imperial consumer (with its associated 'mountains of secondhand clothes' that make up 'a tide of clothing'.) I'm not saying it won't shape the coming year, but I'll be sure to watch and see if it does.
Another leading thinker, John Sutherland, offers as his prediction for an idea to shape the year to come that the year just ended 'was when we began to listen carefully to what the arch-terrorist [Osama bin Laden] is actually saying'.
I don't know that I could have done better, but at this level I wouldn't have tried.
