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UK Election 2024

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope that everybody reading this had a good year, and will have a better next year.

This is a continuation from 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. The idea is to evaluate the previous year and plan for the next year.

Review

The following is a review of the objectives set in 2023 for 2024:

2023 was an interesting year, to say the least. You may notice that my website went dark (no pages served) and I didn’t write here for quite some time. To understate things - it has been quite hectic and distressing year.

I still have not got the energy to discuss this, but I think I will start writing about parts of it. Things have thankfully progressed away, but I must still be somewhat careful about what is written here, due to any potential consequences of doing so.

Review of Goals

Health - I have let my health go somewhat over this year, and before it gets awful I need to do something about it. For me this means switching back onto the keto diet for a while until things are under control. It will be painful, but I now have a new commercial smart watch to help me track progress.

I have somewhat failed to address my health, but I think I am mentally more prepared to do so now. I have reverted to comfort food, but mostly stayed away from sugar. The main issue has been overeating of meats and fats.

A diet is definitely on the cards for this year, as I have the objective of travelling, and in my current shape I would not enjoy this. I also will require all of the energy I can muster to get through this year, so I must be healthy.

Writing - I of course want to write here more often and post more articles. The ‘highlight’ project has really extended now and allows for articles with supporting code, graphs, and will soon allow for arbitrary vector images.

I have written here much more than the previous year, with hopefully more projects in the near future. The ‘highlight’ project has indeed been great, and the vector images have been useful!

Publishing - It would be good to publish one additional paper this year just to keep my foot in academia. Given my current status I will likely need to fund this myself, but I believe it will be worthwhile.

I have failed to publish anything, but little did I know that the legal situation would continue, and that it would continue to take a toll on my health. I have one project I may end up as a co-author on, and have some publication-worthy ideas in the pipeline.

Projects - There are multiple small projects I would like to tackle. I think the trick will be to limit them to one week each (the equivalent of one whole day). I want to work more on the Linux PDA project as this really interests me.

I actually did make some progress on the Linux PDA project, but it turned into a micropython smart watch with WiFi! Believe it or not, this form factor makes a lot of sense and I’m very excited to see where this can go! So far we have the display driver working (well), touch screen, power management and the ability to bring those elements together. The hardware has been quite good so far, so the software on top should be an easier task.

I have already been able to re-use the micropython project elsewhere and intend to expand it to other projects. I have a very nice build and deployment process that is somewhat portable on Linux systems.

Review of Predictions

Although I didn’t make any predictions in 2023, I did in 2022. Let’s see how well they held up!

Economy

Crash - Most people now see this is on the cards with many of the large financial organisations now predicting a large global crash at the first quarter of 2023. Maybe this was slightly too early, but with global strikes and bad weather, people’s ability to spend money around the Christmas holiday has been greatly reduced - something that was much needed this year.

We didn’t see a crash, as much as we say a slow crumple into a region we are yet to test the boundary of. Despite high inflation, the following graph shows that the UK economy has pretty much crashed:

Monthly GDP and mains sectors (processed from: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/datasets/monthlygdpandmainsectorstofourdecimalplaces)

Growth had pretty much entirely stalled, and I suspect things will get far worse. I saw an article recently, but now see that it is much older, that less than half of UK households are net contributors to the UK economy. With the job market beginning to collapse, more pressure will be put on the remaining tax payers. Couple this with the collapsing Chinese manufacturing market - and it spells large trouble.

Loans - A family friend was quoted something like 7% for a mortgage some months ago at the time of writing, and now another friend has been quoted something around 9%. This is already insane territory, and it looks like we will see double digits really soon now. This generally means a housing market crash, as nobody can afford to buy houses and supply outpaces demand. Houses are then not built, people cannot move, etc.

Mortgage rates came down somewhat, but still sit above 5%. The UK Labour government want to build hundreds of thousands of houses each year to curve demand, some percentage of which will be extremely low-profit affordable housing, the rest being where the profit is actually made. The demand is almost entirely for affordable housing, which property developers do not want to make. They also do not want to flood the market with housing, paying high-rates for development and losing money on sales. It’s extremely unclear how this issue will be resolved.

Energy - I honestly thought there would already be blackouts in the UK and over Europe, but I am heavily suspecting an awful winter late January to early March that would greatly increase energy needs for both warming and generally electric. During this time, expect lots of blackouts. Very hard decisions will most definitely need to be made.

We just about avoided blackouts in the UK. I spoke to somebody recently who works in the energy sector, and we missed it by the skin of our teeth. As a result they are now looking to install “smart meters” so that they can financially punish people for using energy at the ‘wrong times’.

Conflicts

Russia and Ukraine - There is little to no hope of peace breaking out, with strike from Ukraine to Russia and Russia to Ukraine over the Christmas break of significant magnitude. I believe Ukraine targeted military assets and Russia targeted civilian assets, but this is not the part to de-escalation. I predict this continues to be hard-fought war.

Perfectly predicted, Russia vs Ukraine continues to be a long and brutal war. Both sides continue to slowly but surely escalate the munitions and tactics used.

China and Taiwan - I believe China is absolutely primed for an invasion on China. You have everybody distracted with Russia-Ukraine, economies crashing and other conflicts breaking out. You then have the CCP highly motivated to find a distraction for their people, with protests and riots very recently resulting in the ‘end’ of their zero COVID policy.

I believe China is even more primed for a war with Taiwan. Why? The Chinese economy is collapsing daily, people are beginning to starve and this goes largely unreported on. The only way out would be to do as Russia has done, and switch to a war-time economy. The issue is that once you enter into a war-time economy it can be extremely difficult to transition out of.

Other conflicts - With the world in chaos and the ‘world police’ (UN, NATO, the West more generally) currently distracted, it is a prime time for other Countries to also create large distractions for their own internal issues. Do not be surprised to see other conflicts starting in 2023.

This remains true, we see a greater possibility of other conflicts arising. Israel vs Palestine, Israel vs Iran, etc. Don’t think this is going away any time soon.

Goals

Life:
- Diet - I need to get my weight under control, I have a lot planned in the New Year and I need the health to match.
- Fitness - As well as losing weight, I want to have greater fitness. I need to set a proper goal, but currently being able to jog 5 miles would be a good one to achieve within a year.
- Writing - I want to write here more in 2025, I think this is important to me. This website is rapidly approaching 10 years of age!
- Reading - I’ve purchased hundreds of pounds of books, mostly second-hand, to read over the next year. I’m currently not well read, but I want to be. I’ve gone through and found the best examples of books from history and the current literature.
Projects:
- PDA - This project is in progress, but I hope that within the next year it is in a state where I can daily-drive the watch! Capabilities should include notifications, internet communications, and many other cool features!
- Robotics - I have a few project on the go, including:
  - Localisation - We desperately need cheap localisation, and it has gotten to the point where I will need to quickly hack this together. Our requirements are such that off-the-shelf versions will not be easily usable.
  - Motor control board - I have been looking to run a custom motor control board to replace the very aged Robotis CM730, upgrading power, throughput, control capabilities, sensor capabilities and more!
  - Low-cost platform - I have wanted to experiment with autonomous robots more with the context of a home, and have been working towards a low-cost robotics platform.
- Publications - I have a few ideas on this, including:
  - Image processing - Not to say too much, but I have some ideas here for cheap object detection that will help with autonomous robotics.
  - Motion engine - I have (very slowly) been plugging away at this problem, and hope some results pop out over 2025.
Work:
- First product - Even if it kills me, I have a fundamental desire to push a product out of the door at work. I want to gain the experience from start to finish of releasing a product into the wild, and to put said-product into the hands of users. If I learn nothing else next year, this would be an extremely valuable experience.
- Side hustle - In 2025 I want to get a small side business operating. I’m not sure what yet, but I think it would be good experience to sell goods or services properly.

Predictions

Conflicts:
- Russia vs Ukraine - I suspect Trump will struggle to de-escalate this, but I want to be wrong. My concern is that the military industrial complex, as well as many other Countries, are far too invested now to pump the brakes on this investment.
- Israel vs Palestine - This is unlikely to be resolved easily, but I also don’t think there is much want for this to escalate any further from either side.
- China vs Other - There is a large risk that, due to economic tensions, China may look towards war to straighten out the economy. It allows the state to take seize full control over everything, forcing any entity or person to operate at a loss. The CCP have already been here though, and due to lack of transparency, ended up starving millions of their people.
Economy:
- UK housing collapse - I don’t know how the UK housing market is supposed to resolve. Money is running out, mortgages remain high, demand also remains high, materials and labour continue to increase (cost of development), and property developers are negatively rewarded for mass development. (See below for more.)
- Employment - I think we will see further job losses this year, and there is not yet any sign of a route to recovery. In order for large employers to increase employment, there needs to be the prospect of growth. Looking back at the previous graph, growth is off the table.
- Pensions - There is still no serious solution to the unsustainable pensions scheme. I don’t think there is any solution that will not result in very unhappy people. The only way out I can see is a significant increase in the pension age to the point where a significantly fewer number of people may collect it - but realistically with the NHS actively failing, people cannot be expected to be in full operating condition to older ages. We will end up with older people unable to work, but also not qualifying for pension. This leads nowhere good.
- Chinese economy - Every time I see the Chinese economy, I am surprised to see that it has not yet collapsed. I don’t know how many large companies and banks must collapse out there, but it’s getting out of control. The loans are now being lent under high-risk conditions with record low margins ¹ - the only way that ends is under an enormous collapse. Foreign investors want none of that.
- Global recession - I suspect, at this point, we are just waiting on who it is that falls first, to trigger a large global recession that makes 2008 seem like a small trip to Greece.
Other:
- Bird-flu - Yeah, so bird-flu is now spreading significantly, with the UK starting to stockpile bird-flue vaccines in the millions, you know, just encase. People have been contracting it for quite some time, but the concern is when we see human-to-human transmission. This could be one to watch.
- Right-wing swing - I think that in the West we see a massive swing to the right-wing. I believe that people are generally tired and concerned with left-wing progressivism, with almost all freedoms being imposed on in the name of progress. In the UK we have seen concerned people arrested, and convicted to years in prison, on the basis of ‘suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred and false communications’. Meanwhile, the police were telling Muslim men to put their weapons back in the Mosque, as if they are some kind of armoury against the British. Most Western people will take a lot of abuse, but they will not be happy to sacrifice the safety of their children.
- Reform popularity - I suspect that the Reform party will continue to grow in popularity, but it is unclear what the maximum popularity could be, i.e. enough to form a majority party. The issue is a lack of seasoned MPs to form a cabinet, the push-back from the permanent state (civil service), and the push-back from the existing established parties. It’s also not clear to me if Nigel Farage can take it there, or if the party ends up being a cult of personality.

Housing Market (Continued)

Regarding the rental market, we have the following equation for the rental vacancy rate:

$V = \beta_0 + \beta_1 . EC + \beta_2 . K + \beta_3 . UR + \epsilon$

Where:

$V$ is the rental vacancy rate,
$EC$ is excess completions (the difference between new completions and underlying household formation),
$K$ is the total number of dwellings,
$UR$ is the unemployment rate,
$\beta$ coefficients represent the impact of each variable,
$\epsilon$ is the error term.

I personally have seen $V$ increasing for commercial properties, but that is a data point of one. We assume that Labour are going to push $EC$ upwards, increasing $K$ , with $UR$ increasing due to a stalled economy, with the $\beta$ coefficients remaining constant and ignoring the error rate $\epsilon$ … It all points to an increased rental vacancy rate of $V$ . It’s a policy that spells death.

Finally

Hopefully things are not as bad as I predict, and that all of my objectives can be completed in the new year.