In Competition No. 3330 you were invited to submit some improbable forecasts, in verse, for the year ahead. Things you deemed unlikely to happen this year ranged from the predictable – peace in Ukraine, a reversal of climate change – to the whimsical: Donald Trump as the next Pope and Snoop Dogg eloping with Penny Mordaunt. The winners earn £25.

Around the UK coast he’ll steer
His rusty, overladen barge,
locating homes for refugees…
What are you up to now, Farage?

If punishment that’s capital
Can find itself again restored,
There’ll be a chance for Penny M,
To demonstrate her massive sword.

Incompetently, Cleverly
Called Stockton some disgusting names,
But, in this topsy-turvy world,
The New Year holds great hopes for James.

And soon we’ll cheer for Meghan’s Hal –
They say his follow-up to Spare
Is guaranteed the Booker prize,
And/or the Oxford English Chair!

C. Paul Evans

Donald Trump will bend his knee,
confess his sins, repent,
then focus on philanthropy
till down to his last cent,
then find himself a campaign bus
to travel nationwide in,
confessing, ‘I was treasonous,
so please elect Joe Biden.’

Then Putin, moved to tears by this,
will pull out from Ukraine,
and all the crazies of the world
will suddenly turn sane.
And by the end of twenty-four
the hungry will be fed.
What’s more, there’ll be an end to war
in the year that lies ahead.

Robert Schechter

The murmurs of ‘Good show!’ out of 15 Savile Row
when Rishi Sunak’s trousers meet his shoes,
are found to be misplaced when a lower-riding waist
discloses his Luke Skywalker tattoos.

An Arran-wide bonanza from Kildonan to Lochranza
when a ferry plies the mackerel-teeming Firth,
is surpassed when Lorna Salter in a yellow excavator
duals the carriageway from Inverness to Perth.

As the Chipping Norton set infiltrate the Cabinet,
the Bamfords bring organic expertise,
Lord Clarkson is arrayed as the Secretary of Trade,
and Alex James as Minister for Cheese.

Hello! and Private Eye have departed for Dubai,
while Riyadh favours Country Life and Heat.
The Telegraph and Sun print the views of Kim Jong-un,
but the barricades are manned in Old Queen Street.

Nick MacKinnon

Ring in the year Aquarius will dawn
And peace will guide the planet then and love
Will steer the stars – Oh ever-blessèd morn!
And then the hawk will share nest with the dove,
The Mighty Quinn the Inuit will teach
The world to sing in harmony and rhyme
An ode to joy and freedom! None need preach
For all men shall be brothers. ’Tis the time
For peace – I swear it’s not too late, my friend!
Like men of old, we’ll find Truth’s guiding star
And so at last the world will see an end
To war, to Brussels sprouts, to VAR!
You may say I’m a dreamer. You’d be right
But dreams like this will help me sleep at night.

David Silverman

The Daily Mail is kind to refugees,
headlines brimful with positive suggestions
and praise for decency in our MPs,
their truthfulness in parliamentary questions.

TransPennine Trains turn up and run on time.
Doctors achieve pay settlements they’re due.
Poets resolve: The Only Way Is Rhyme.
The year’s top flavoured crisps are kangaroo.

Nigel Farage becomes a Trappist monk.
A new tax targets sugar, fats and sweets.
King Charles’ makeover restyles him in punk.
Cyclists agree to stick to roads, not streets.

The Angel of the North makes his first flight.
The Fourth Plinth hosts a bust of Chairman Mao.
Sago becomes a culinary delight.
A pair of flying pigs glide over Slough.

D.A. Prince

I scry with my inner eye
A new year beginning with June.
There’ll be autumns and springs ’til you’re sick of the things
And a permanent, swollen full moon.

I scry and, aye, prophesy
That Elvis will come back alive,
Having transitioned gender, he’ll trill Love Me Tender
While teaching Glaswegians to drive.

I scry and so can espy
The AI elected as POTUS.
Having deepfaked itself and sequestered your wealth
It retires to eat digital lotus.

I scry, had better say why
My visions seem weirdly unlikely:
If I were to foretell events merely banal
They’d not have me on TV twice nightly.

Adrian Fry

No. 3333: fact or fiction

Ben Schott wrote a short story that united Donald Trump with Jeeves and Wooster. You are invited to submit a short story that features Trump, or a politician of your choice, in another well-known fictional landscape. Email entries of up to 150 words to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 17 January./>