When Flash Gordon met the man with a plan

Thursday, 20th November 2008

Matthew d’Ancona looks back at the political twists and turns that shaped 2008

It was a year of global economic upheaval; of national political turbulence; of little local difficulties in abundance; and of unexpected comebacks. Who, 12 months ago, would have thought that Peter Mandelson and John Maynard Keynes would be back at the centre of the action? But so it has proved. And, as if all that were not enough, Westminster is still getting used to the idea of a new President of the United States, and what his election means for Britain.

The electoral pivot of the past 12 months came in May as Labour sank to its lowest share of the vote for 40 years in the local elections and lost control of London to Boris Johnson. The paradox of the Boris campaign, the overturning of the class caricature, was that he ran as a people’s tribune, not as a royal pretender. Reviled by his opponents as a toff, the Etonian — and former Spectator editor — aspired to wrest the city from its Cockney monarch, King Ken, and restore it to its citizens. Boris was the John Wilkes of this election, not the restorationist of an old Tory order.

The new mayor was not the only Tory outside the Cameroon clique to cause a sensation this year. David Davis’s resignation as MP for Haltemprice and Howden in June, in protest at the government’s proposal to extend the pre-charge detention period for terror suspects to 42 days, may well have ended his front-bench career. Rapidly replaced by Dominic Grieve as shadow home secretary, Mr Davis invited sharp criticism for his snap decision to trigger a by-election. But none can doubt the panache of what he did; nor that it played a part in the demise of the hugely controversial 42 days measure. We have not heard the last of this swashbuckling Conservative.

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