Rishi Sunak just gave his New Year prediction and people are worried

Brace yourselves; Rishi Sunak has given his New Year's message to the nation, and people think it's a bit too similar to the unfounded optimism that preceded the worst year in modern times.

Writing for the Sunday Express, he said he was confident that "better times lie ahead" and there is "every reason to believe" we will emerge stronger after a rough 2022.

It was headlined: "Good times are coming" which made people's minds immediately jump to a rather inaccurate prediction of hope back on January 1 ... 2020.

That was when Boris Johnson posted a picture of himself doing a double thumbs up, seemingly from some kind of stairwell, with the message: "This is going to be a fantastic year for Britain."

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If you don't remember, 2020 turned out to be really, really bad. Mainly due to a worldwide pandemic in which Britain was disproportionately hit due to some questionable decisions on how to handle it.

Political journalist Adam Bienkov first tweeted the comparison, which raised eyebrows online.

US political commentator Molly Jong-Fast quote-tweeted it with the comment: "Yikes poor England," while others chimed in with variations of "Yikes", "Oh god", and "This is the kiss of death."

Many had very different predictions for the coming year.

One wrote: "Can't see it happening myself. If the Tories remain in office for 2023 everything will get worse and Sunak (or whoever is prime minister then) will tell us 'good times are coming so, vote Conservative'. And it will be a lie as much then as it was in 2019, 2017 and 2015."

Another said: "In a hypothetical world situated in a different dimension of space and time than the real world maybe. But not in this one."

Another summed up Tory rule: "They drag you down so they can lift you back up and expect your gratitude. The public are in an abusive relationship with the Tory govt."

Still, keeping his comments to the written word will help avoid IRL awks situations like this one, in which he had a stilted and rather bizarre conversation with a guy at a homeless centre.

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