It is unsurprising then that 2011 has been a stellar year for misplaced predictions. Who can forget Muammar Gaddafi telling us in February that “all my people love me” or Harold Camping insisting the world would end in May (or October)?

Our politicians were not immune either – at PMQs last week Ed Miliband highlighted David Cameron’s promise of “a more collegiate approach” to government in 2011 – only for the PM to hit back quoting Miliband stating “the fightback starts in Scotland”.

Yet the potential for being left red faced hasn’t stopped our team speculating about what 2012 might bring us. A straw poll of the office (Chatham House rules, of course) revealed:

• Barack Obama will win the US Presidential Election, defeating Mitt Romney
• The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will not have a baby in 2012 (though at least one person disagreed…)
• Germany will win Euro 2012 and Great Britain will finish a creditable 4^th in the Olympic medal table

We’d love to hear your predictions for next year – drop us a line - but in the meantime, a very merry Christmas from all at the Champollion group, and here’s to a great 2012.

But none of the major parties wants a General Election at the moment.  The Liberal Democrats would be trounced – and they know it. Labour are not ready to mount a campaign and many party members will
be nervous about being led into a campaign by their current leader.  This may explain the party’s lacklustre and muddled attack on the government in recent days.  David Cameron would also be nervous about going to the country.  Working with the Liberal Democrats helps him to ensure he isn’t trapped in a stranglehold of the right.  It also means he remains Prime Minister – having to fight a General Election wouldn’t be without risk.

Of course, another reason why there’s unlikely to be a General Election anytime soon is a legal one.  This Government passed the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.  The next General Election will be in 2015
unless a motion of no confidence is passed or two thirds of MPs vote for an early General Election.  Why, in the current climate, would they want to do that?

That said, if a senior Cabinet Minister was to resign, the coalition could quickly unravel.  Whenever there is a coalition crisis people tend to look to Vince Cable.  While his resignation would be damaging, it wouldn’t be fatal to the Government.  However, if Ken Clarke walked out over Europe, it’s difficult to see how the coalition could stick together.  If he no longer supported the government’s position, the Liberal Democrats, as the pro-European partner, would look very weak indeed.

You recently chaired the Make Justice Work National Enquiry – what made you want to take part in that initiative?

First of all I was asked to lead it, but also I felt that it was a worthwhile thing to do from a personal point of view because of what I felt I would learn from it. I wanted to have the opportunity to understand a part of public life better than I had done before. I had a very shallow understanding of what was happening in the criminal justice sector and now it’s less shallow.

What struck you most from the Enquiry?

I found the calibre of some of the people I found in the criminal justice system very impressive. Also I’m not sure whether it is surprising or not but what I found most impressive was the power of the argument for looking to find ways of not locking people up, but getting hold of them instead and saying “look this is something else you can do”. What really stood out was the moral aspect of this argument. You have people working very hard to try and transform the lives of persistent offenders and get them away from a life of crime. They were trying to ‘save’ people in one way or another.

What would you say to the argument that people who commit crime should just be behind bars?

I don’t understand that at all, that is not an argument I recognise. I mean you think of the teachings of Jesus as the shepherd, he agonised most about his lost sheep. These people have gone off the rails and they are the ones we must try hardest to redeem.

Crime and justice is a subject that has traditionally divided the Tories and the Lib Dems. How do you think the two parties are faring on this issue in coalition?

The coalition embodies two different traditions and two irreconcilable traditions really, one which rules that criminals should be locked up and that prison is the best place for them, and another tradition that sees criminals as hopefully capable of redemption in some way. Unfortunately I don’t think the coalition has reconciled those two positions.

I think one of the things I did appreciate in doing this Enquiry was that both competing perspectives do have certain things in common. Clearly those that advocate alternatives to prison accept that there is a category of offender who needs to go to prison at some point. And equally the other side is only too glad to acknowledge that there are tough minded alternatives to prison. It is really a question of balance more than anything else and it’s also partly a question of rhetoric. So I did learn that: that each side acknowledges the legitimacy of part of the argument of the other side. But what I haven’t particularly seen is reconciliation between the two positions, particularly in their rhetoric. I haven’t really seen any sense that the two arguments are closer together – maybe I’m wrong.

How far has the media shaped the debate about criminal justice?

Out of the coalition we haven’t yet had the kind of law and order frenzy that from time to time occurred in the past. No justice secretary or home secretary has yet been placed in the position where he or she has had to cope with a wave of arguments or rhetoric that they must be tougher on law and order. I’m not sure the media has shaped this argument a great deal under the coalition. If you go back there have been home secretaries who have made their reputation by being tough on crime, you can see examples under New Labour and under the Major government and the Thatcher government. But I don’t think the argument is being shaped in that way at the moment. I think it is being shaped by economics more than anything else and the fact that we have a very stringent economic environment.

Do you think there needs to be a change in the way that politicians and the media talk about criminal justice?

I still think it’s perfectly legitimate to argue that people who commit crimes should go to gaol. You do get the alternative argument in the broadsheets and to some extent in the tabloids. The BBC gets it quite a lot. There is certainly a category of politician and a category of reporting which looks at things in a very simple way, but that also has its legitimacy. There are law-abiding people, particularly people who are exposed to it, who live on council estates or live in difficult areas, who suffer from crime and feel victims of it. They don’t necessarily have the luxury of looking at crime in a very objective or learned way. I think the media is really just representing the position of quite a lot of law-abiding people who don’t feel very sympathetic to criminals. It’s quite a sophisticated position to say that criminals shouldn’t go to gaol. I think it’s a respectable tradition to say that if possible they shouldn’t, and I think if you can redeem people without sending them to gaol, it’s much better. But I can understand why some newspapers or columnists and leader writers say what they do. What I mean is they shouldn’t distort the argument. And there are certainly some political voices that project a very simple-minded analysis of law and order issues and that I think is bad, because one of the jobs politicians should have is to educate public opinion as well as reflect it.

Do you think campaigns can bring about some that change in the media and political debate?

Yes definitely. I mean for instance in our Enquiry Philip Davies turned up and listened to the arguments, even if he didn’t agree with them. I think that lobby groups such as Make Justice Work have a very, very powerful role to play. There is a debate, a centre ground where policy is contested and I think lobby groups do play a powerful role there. To say that our policy on gaols is completely blinkered and right-wing is wrong, it’s not. People in the criminal justice system and politicians have to weigh all kinds of factors up and they continue to do so. So there is a debate and I think lobby groups play a pretty helpful part in that.

Finally, how has the industry in general changed in the years you have been a journalist?

One of the most striking differences is that I used to use typewriters when I started, now everything’s mobile. Google has also made a vast change because now you have far more information available to you. That’s the biggest difference, as well as the emergence of what some people might call competition through the blogs and from bloggers. Arguments are carved out within minutes online. So when you are reaching a view about events, by the time you write an article there is far more information available to you, really good stuff sometimes, than you had 25 years ago. We are definitely reaching more informed opinions today. We all have access to a much greater pool of knowledge before going to print. There is much less excuse for being unaware of arguments or facts than there was. It took quite a lot of ‘doing’ 25 years ago to find out where all the arguments were, you know you had to pick up a phone and ring the spokesman for the organisations concerned. Now very often you can see it all online. My own role has changed: obviously I was a reporter 25 years ago and now I’m a columnist. But it strikes me that we should be much, much better informed than we were.

It’s this clear inconsistency in law that should ensure the success of the Human Dignity Trust (HDT) – a legal organisation launched amid swathes of good will in the House of Lords last week. HDT will help local groups and litigators bring cases to their domestic courts in an attempt to overturn these antiquated homophobic laws. And with a distinguished panel of legal heavyweights and £2m worth of resource support from leading international law firms behind them, you wouldn’t bet against HDT succeeding.

It was therefore really exciting and a great privilege for us to help raise the profile of the Trust, and support their launch event on 17 November. On the night, the organisation’s chair and founder Tim Otty QC began his address by retelling some of the shocking facts related to the criminalisation of homosexuality. Almost 80 per cent of the Commonwealth community still criminalises gay people, for example, and worldwide there are five countries which carry the death penalty for ‘offenders’.

One country still actively prosecuting homosexual people for their identity –  and carrying a five-year prison sentence for convictions – is Cameroon. Alice Nkom, a Cameroonian human rights lawyer, lent her full support to HDT and was a guest speaker at the launch. A genuinely inspirational woman, Alice dedicates her time and expertise to defending gay people facing imprisonment on the basis of their sexuality. Alice explained how she does this at great personal risk; she receives regular death threats and Cameroon’s own justice minister has tried to have her stuck off. She is not afraid, and she has no plans to give up her work, but Alice is only one woman, albeit an extraordinary one. She made clear the value of the support from the international community, as represented by the foundation of HDT.

There was a media buzz around HDT’s creation, including write-ups in the Guardian, Pink News and New Statesman. And the big news is yet to come, with court cases planned for Belize and Jamaica in the New Year, proving the Trust means to do exactly what it says.

What makes HDT different is, as Chief Executive Jonathan Cooper OBE has made clear on several occasions, the Trust is not a campaign or lobby of any kind. Instead, it is a purely legal outfit with a narrow yet achievable goal: to end the criminalisation of gay people.

The company previously produced ’Into the Hoods’ and it went on to be the longest running dance show in the West End. Zoonation aims to inspire young people from all communities and provide them with positive opportunities. Kate feels that hip hop in theatres can bring new audiences into the theatre and introduce and inspire regular theatre goers to new genres.

The plot – the Governor, grieving from the loss of his wife decides to lock up the sun and plunge his kingdom into darkness where men rule, women do not speak, literature is banished and love is prohibited. Two young women decide to rebel and disguise themselves as men and infiltrate the ranks of the Governor. After much hilarity and screaming girls in the audience at the sight of bare chests, each of the dancers expressed their individuality and showed off their impressive and explosive moves.

It is also worth mentioning that the singing and beat boxing was incredible and created the different scenes and moods in the performance beautifully.

At the end, the audience were up on their feet dancing or “pop and locking” as one of my colleagues described it.  Champollion loved it, but I think I can safely say we will unfortunately have to stick to our day jobs.

Inspired by the real-life stories of Ralph Ojotu, a former prisoner, and written by Ben Musgrave, His Teeth makes of much of exploring the space between inescapable circumstance and personal decisions. The issues raised by His Teeth, and much of Only Connect’s other work, were brought into focus when it emerged just before launch that Ralph Ojotu was being sought by the police in connection with a recent crime.

Despite this set-back, the team at Only Connect have not been put-off. Independent research by New Philanthropy Capital has recently shown that their work cuts reoffending among the people they work with by more than half. Dire circumstances can be hard to escape, and people don’t always make the right choices, but projects like Only Connect can offer a better chance than many of the traditional alternatives in the criminal justice system.

His Teeth is showing until November 19th: http://www.onlyconnectuk.org/histeeth

One especially compelling presentation came from Professor Guy Standing.  His book “The Precariat – the dangerous class” describes how the demands of the global economy has led to the creation of a new class of people trapped between punitive benefits systems and a succession of unstable and poorly paid jobs.  His prediction that the stress and dislocation felt by the millions in the precariat would lead them to revolt in the “days of rage” seem eerily prescient following this summer’s riots.

Everyone seems to regard social media as an avalanche that has led to a seismic shift in information sharing and consumption. Twitter is the major driver of information, and the days of a newspaper columnist or BBC presenter breaking the news – and, crucially, what it really means – are supposedly long gone. Part of this is undoubtedly true – Twitter is often first with breaking news and pictures, and in the case of the myriad of superinjunctions that became apparent earlier this year it played a big role in revealing the truth – thinking about it, am I still technically even allowed to talk about any of this!?

But there is also a lot of confusion, inaccuracy and misrepresentation on Twitter, and so the basic and most important issue when it comes to information remains in doubt: is it from a reliable source, and can it be trusted? In most cases, only when information comes from a respected and trustworthy source, even on Twitter, does it reach the mainstream and really start to build momentum. Think about the superinjunctions madness – rumours had been abound for months on Twitter, but only when print and broadcast picked it up did it become impossible to turn anywhere without someone shouting ‘It was *****!’ at you…

Social media is indeed often the first to know – although don’t write off good old-fashioned investigative journalism – but there is no validator. Traditional forms of media – print and broadcast – still essentially need to be right. And so it might be that people are getting their information from the million tweets sent every second, but invariably the one or two they are reading, trusting and then sharing themselves, are from the old bastions of journalism. Fear not, Nick Robinson, we are still listening.

Helen joins us having led the UK team at another communications agency, where she devised strategic media and stakeholder campaigns for high-profile international and domestic clients. Helen has particular expertise working in the arts and international relations, which are key areas for a number of our clients. We are very much looking forward to having her on board.

Last week, 24 years later, I was invited to speak at the MBA Association of Ireland business lunch at Hillsborough Castle, Belfast, where the Queen stays on visits to Northern Ireland and where the Good Friday agreement was signed. What was it that enabled an unemployed 16-year-old to break out of unemployment to being invited to speak at a prestigious event for senior business leaders?

The answer I feel is also the solution to today’s economic crisis and the problem of high unemployment and lack of job creation on both a national and global level. The last 24 years I’ve propelled myself forward purely based on know-how and having access to the knowledge economy. And the good news about this is: it doesn’t matter where you live.

In fact the invention of the internet solved the root problem of unemployment, namely being born in the wrong place. Genetically you’re just as good as the person with the career – it’s just that they were born near the market and you weren’t. However with the knowledge economy and the internet you can work from anywhere in the world – with the economy irrigated to where you are.

Therefore, solving the ongoing economic crisis, and the lack of opportunity which results, isn’t a political problem or one which requires a government solution. It needs smarter business – opening multiple branch offices across the UK rather than vertically into a single building or region. It’s about re-designing business process and using growth to target unemployment hotspots and breathing life into economic deserts.

And that’s why I speak at places like the MBA Association. It’s great to see amazing historical places such as Hillsborough Castle in Belfast and hang out with the Queen (nearly). But what matters is spreading the word about smarter business growth – to set more people free from systemic barriers to have careers they were told they could never have – just like I was told 24 years ago.