revolution is coming, in 2012

Refusal to deal properly with MPs' Expenses, encouraging massive immigration just to annoy the Tories, helping in the eradication of democracy in Europe by refusing 65 million people any say in their future, ignoring scientific fraud in climate research provided it opens up new tax and wealth re-distribution platforms, incompetence dealing with the banking collapse and subsequent worsening of double or multiple dip recession, getting us bogged down in far away conflicts, imposing a Big Brother surveillance state, associating the UK with the eradication of free speech via libel laws, making the UK the divorce capital of the world, engaging in illegal wars overseas while providing a safe haven for terrorist groups here, upending the justice system so that over-filling a bin is punished more severely than mugging or shoplifting and presiding over the dismantling of common sense in favour of political correctness, dismantling society, etc, etc.

Private sector pension schemes are being closed and watered down, while public sector workers seem to live in a protected world at private sector expense. People are getting older so the pensions won't be able to cope, and taxes will have to rise. Too much of the population already lives on handouts from the rest. Young people watch older people getting more rights, more funding and living in expensive houses, while they foot the bill via higher and higher taxes, or can't get jobs at all, and many can't afford homes of their own. Intergenerational conflict is just around the corner. Meanwhile, second and third generation immigrants are leaving to go back to their ancestors' homelands to get a higher quality of life for their kids. Today we read that the number of people leaving the UK is the highest ever, while over half a million newcomers have arrived this year. Most of them will go home later because they've either made the money they wanted or discovered that the grass isn't as green as they thought from the other side of the fence. This re-migration will replace immigration and a brain drain will leave the UK with far too few people with the right skills to sustain a viable economy.

This is all stuff we read about daily in every newspaper and hear on every TV channel. I've probably left out a lot of gripes, there are just too many to list from memory. People in the UK are pissed off big time and see little evidence that their gripes are being listened to. It is the stuff revolution is made of. But it hasn't reached critical mass yet, and the right spark hasn't been struck. My calculations over the last several years have led me to believe that we will see a revolution in 2012, based on nothing more than watching the speed of increase and volume of protest. I could be out either way by a year. If I'm out by 2, it could be next year, but I really don't think so.

Question 1: When will it reach critical mass? When will enough people become angry enough to sustain a revolution? As I said, my best guess is still 2012.

Question 2 is: what will be the spark that ignites it? I think it will be an severe increase in taxation - various tax increases to pay for the bankers' mistakes, and lots of new environmental levies, coupled with an increase in surveillance to police it all, coupled finally with a mature social web that will enable people to build and wield political power on the web effectively.

Questions 3: what will the revolution look like?
It will start peacefully as an on-line protest, and will gather speed quickly. Some charismatic people will capture the mood and rise quickly to the top and act as spokespeople. Then it will quickly disintegrate into violent protests, coordinated electronically using a variety of interwoven platforms. It will spread to multiple agendas, in much the same way as the anti-capitalist protests did, and acquire a large number of hangers-on more interested in demonstrating than the causes themselves. Violence will start to increase, and will spread to other countries that share some of the same grievances. Police will do their best to control it, but will be out-manoeuvred and outnumbered.

Question 4: what will the result be?
Anyone's guess