Being that day in the calendar that only comes around every four years did raise the question – how will things have changed for Grandads in Britain by 29 Feb 2020?
Here is one correspondent’s view. In politics the 2016 EU Referendum will be long since passed and Britain will have been a regional province of Europa for over a year. However the target of complete financial union of all the former countries will have slipped out to 2028. But at least the German Europa Projekt will, by 2020, have achieved some of its objectives. Certainly the expansion further east will have progressed to include Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and, the big one, Turkey. Thus completing another cultural objective by incorporating the former Constantinople within the EU; thus recreating its position within the Roman Empire. However this will be tragically ironic as it will be in Turkey that President Merkel is assassinated. An act carried out by refugees from the on-going fighting in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. And one which will lead to a tense face-off between the EU Army and Russia on the Eastern Front. It also means that the EU Army does not respond to a second Argentine invasion of the Falklands. An attack which is followed by all the surviving islanders being removed to camps in Argentina and two thousand Argentine nationals being shipped in to take over. Just three months later a referendum is called on the islands with the predictable result. A move that will gain UN approval since Britain’s place on the Security Council will have been assigned to Europa.
Domestically Prime Minister Corbyn will be setting out his government’s plans to terminate the reign of the House of Windsor before the next coronation. However the 94 year old Queen Elizabeth is showing no signs of ill-health and has already won her case in the European Supreme Court for protection against unfair dismissal. Also the Palace of Westminster will be no longer be the home of Parliament. The building being in the middle of conversion into a tourist attraction funded by China. Instead the English regional parliament meetings will be held at the Great Dragon Building; constructed by the Shanghai Development Corp on what was Victoria Tower Gardens.
But the big issues affecting Grandads will be the massive failures in infrastructure – as everything from power supplies to health care become overloaded by the population boom. The pressure on housing becoming so acute that all retirees will, by 2022, have to either sell their homes and move to state-funded dormitories or loose their pensions. Domestic gas will have become unaffordable for most as the provincial government struggles to meet its carbon targets. And electricity tariffs that vary hour by hour will mean that pensioners have resorted to cooking and washing over night to save money. However the newly created Europarl Ministry of Plenty will declare that all provinces will achieve the desired standards of living within just four years – in 2024.
In sport the big event of the year will be Olympic Games in Tokyo where Europa will field a combined team for the first time. And even though Europa will have extra places in many events the total number of athletes will be much reduced compared to Rio. The merger of over thirty countries into just one meaning that many former nations have no representatives which in turn leads to a big drop in public interest and cutbacks by advertisers in Europe. Only the continued growth of China saves the day for the organisers.
But that’s enough of 2020 when we still have to get through the rest of 2016. And with the Daily Express predicting terrible weather for Easter, then summer, then autumn, etc it’s going to be an uninspiring year.