Photograph of Andrew Neil: Edwright Images, Monaco

Gordon Brown will hang on; Europe and America will be pushed together out of fear of China; and we had better beware of the rise of the new autocracies. That was the message from one of Britain's highest profile broadcasters who was in the Principality of Monaco last week to speak at a Celebrity Lunch.

Organised by Azur Productions in the Café de Paris, the lunch attracted 130-plus people to hear Andrew Neil's thought-provoking predictions for the future. The former editor of The Sunday Times lives and breathes politics. He's currently publisher of the Press Holdings Media Group (The Spectator) and anchorman for Daily Politics on BBC2, The Week on BBCI and Straight Talk on BBC News 24.

"The news is not good from the UK" he began. Prices are up, negative equity is back and immigration is fast taking a back seat as far as issues that worry the Brits are concerned. "The consumer boom was driven by property values, and cutting interest rates is not making a difference."

The UK's embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown will stay to the bitter end in two years time when the general election beckons with a wipe-out or a "recoverable defeat" for Brown. Conservative leader David Cameron will get in on a protest vote. Neil likened Brown to a vampire - "someone who operates well in the shadows but is weak in the glare of the PM's role" to explain his extraordinary descent into the hell of worst polls ever for a Labour Prime Minister.

On America, he would like to see the Democrat candidate Barak Obama win the day over Republican John McCain "to put a stop to the anti-US feeling". Either way the Atlantic Alliance will be strengthened in the face of the threat from China.

Autocracies Rule OK

On longer term trends, he fears the rise of the new democracies, namely China and Russia, who believe in what they are doing. "The current commodity price boom and rise of China is leading to a massive transfer of commodities from the liberal democracies to the autocracies - it's invigorating them."

Neil was also worryingly pessimistic about giving aid to Africa. "The new Silk Road leads from China to Africa. It's no good the Western World laying down laudable conditions for giving aid to Africa's worst regimes: "China is right behind them saying how much do you want? The democratic world is weakened, divided and lacking in direction."

He ended on a positive note - "in time the liberal democracies overcame Nazism and communism, far worse threats than face the world today. There is hope." He also pointed out that if the price of oil stays high at $135 a barrel, many more environmentally friendly technologies - solar, wind, wave power - will become much more economic than they would have done had the price stayed low at $50.