Will KJ-T strike Olympic gold? Will Sunak go for an early election? How much will Taylor Swift fans bring to the UK economy? From tech to fashion, food to politics, the Observer’s top writers predict who and what will make the headlines
Fashion and lifestyle
by Ellie Bramley
Fashion and lifestyle have a knack for the surprise. The out-of-the-blue rise of butter moulding, say, or the sudden coolness of a shoe with a cloven toe.
Divergence and disparateness are the mood music for 2024. What this means for fashion is yet more extreme luxury, both of the stealth wealth and exhibitionist varieties. But there will also be more emphasis than ever on thrifting, textile recycling, and the development of new materials, especially in the luxury market. Expect more seaweed yarns, plastic-free sequins and grape leathers like those shown by designer Stella McCartney at Cop28.
With several elections set for 2024, slogan T-shirts will be used once more for political statements and to pledge allegiance rather than for more personal messages. Expect Maga caps and merch in the vein of Keir Starmer’s Sparkle With Starmer tee, turned around at speed after he was glitter-bombed at Labour conference. There’ll also be more politicians in the pages of Vogue, à la Angela Rayner.
Pinterest predicts that slowcations are the new holidays, with searches up for things like “slow life” and “digital detox challenge”. That doesn’t mean we’ll stay at home, however. This is meant to be the year that travel will surpass pre-pandemic levels, so the holidaywear market is expected to boom. Guessing the mood for summer of 2024 is a fool’s errand this many months out. However, it probably will involve something sporty, given this summer will see Paris, city of chic, play host to the Olympics. Get ready to see some very well-dressed athletes, and the rest of us trying to copy them.UK politics
by Andrew Rawnsley
Americans can be sure when they will be choosing their president because the election date – the Tuesday after the first Monday in November – is mandated by law. We don’t know when the UK will go to the polls because the decision lies in the hands of the prime minister.
Rishi Sunak could even swerve an election in 2024 because the last possible legal date open to him is 28 January 2025. Clinging on until he hit the buffers would make him look totally terrified of the voters. It would also entail the campaign running over Christmas, which would be popular with no one.
Spring or autumn is the choice facing the Tory leader. Anyone who claims to be certain what he will do is either a fool or a fibber, because he doesn’t know himself. Like any politician in his dire circumstances, he’s trying to keep his options open and his opponents guessing. Take with a pinch of salt the flurry of speculation that he is leaning to spring since the announcement that the budget will be on 6 March. That gives him the scope to go to the king soon afterwards to ask for the dissolution of parliament in order to time the general election to coincide with the locals on 2 May.
That might appeal to the Tories if they were suddenly looking competitive, but I struggle to visualise the circumstances in which their whopping deficit in the polls will shrink enough to make that look attractive. As for any budget “giveaways” that Jeremy Hunt might conjure up, tax cuts will look extremely cynical and suspicious if they are almost instantly followed by a dash to the country.
I forecast an autumn contest for two main reasons. There’s a better chance that the Bank of England will have started to cut interest rates by then. For many voters, reductions in inflation and borrowing costs will make a bigger difference to their quality of life than any tax cuts.
My second reason for expecting an autumn election is the psychology of beleaguered incumbents who fear the verdict of the electorate. Leaders who aren’t confident of winning almost invariably delay the moment of reckoning in the hope that something will turn up to save them, as did Alec Douglas-Home in the early 1960s, Jim Callaghan in the late 70s, John Major in the late 90s and Gordon Brown in the run-up to the 2010 election. Delay didn’t spare any of them, but it did give them some extra months at No 10. Never underestimate how much their position on the longevity league table matters to prime ministers.The environment
by Ashish Ghadiali
It looks as if 2024 will be the year of climate action versus the culture wars as crucial elections take place across the US, the UK, the EU and India. These four are some of the world’s highest emitters of greenhouse gases and, across them all, rightwing parties are promising to row back on existing commitments to climate action in an appeal for the populist vote.
Donald Trump, who as US president in 2016 made withdrawal from the Paris agreement an early statement of intent, is again the frontrunner for the Republican nomination and has already promised to renege on the Biden administration’s $3bn pledge at Cop28 for a Green Climate Fund. He also promises to reverse the Environment Protection Agency’s plan to require two-thirds of all new cars sold in the US to be electric by 2032.
Meanwhile, elections for the European parliament in June will see citizens across the EU weigh in on the future of the European Green New Deal, the proposal developed over the past four years by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
Such decisive contests will take place during what many climate scientists predict will be the hottest year on record (an accolade currently held by 2023) when, according to Professor Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation, unprecedented levels of greenhouse gas, new global temperature highs, record sea level increases and Antarctic sea ice lows, amounted to a “deafening cacophony of broken records”.
Extreme heat in 2024 will be driven by the “super El Niño” – a phenomenon of ocean warming in the Pacific that disrupts the Earth’s weather systems, increasing the risk of extreme events around the world, including heatwaves, wildfires, heavy rains and floods – which, in turn, has the potential to hit crop yields threatening both food and global commodity supply chains.
The environmental cost of political instability will be evident, nowhere more than in Gaza where the 25,000 tonnes of munitions dropped on the city within the first few weeks of the conflict amounted to the annual greenhouse gas emissions produced by nearly 5,000 passenger vehicles.
Ramallah-based Nada Majdalani, director of EcoPeace Middle East, says decaying bodies and contaminated water supplies now amount to a “ticking time bomb” that may lead to the spread of deadly diseases, including cholera.
The total shutdown of wastewater treatment plants in Gaza last October is currently driving the release of more than 130,000 cubic metres of untreated sewage into the Mediterranean every day, according to data released by the Norwegian Refugee Council.Television
by Barbara Ellen
Dramatisation of significant novels is a big theme for 2024. The 2020 Booker prize-winning Shuggie Bain (the 1980s-based tale of poverty, alcoholism, love, struggle and sexuality) is being adapted for the BBC by its author, Douglas Stuart.
On Netflix, One Day by David Nicholls is another key adaptation. A 14-episode series will feature Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall as the star-crossed lovers, with each episode representing one year.
Anna Maxwell Martin is to star in the BBC Three series of Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Meanwhile, those who loved Anthony Minghella’s film of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley may be interested to hear that a TV series, Ripley, is imminent. Made by Netflix, it will star Andrew Scott, Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning.
Elsewhere in 2024, there looks to be a strong trend for heightened social commentary in British drama. Steven Knight (creator of Peaky Blinders) is to deliver a new six-part BBC One show, This Town, about 1980s-era working-class life focused on the ska music scene. Alongside the four young leads (Levi Brown, Jordan Bolger, Ben Rose and Eve Austin), it also stars Michelle Dockery, Nicholas Pinnock and Geraldine James. On the same channel, actor Michael Sheen co-creates and directs The Way, a sociopolitical tale of a fictional civil uprising in a small industrial town.
