This election is the most important since 1983. Seldom has so much been at stake

James Forsyth on what promises to be a transformative year in politics

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future‚ as the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr rightly observed. But there are some things one can predict with (almost) total confidence: in this year there will be an election and by next Christmas one of the two main parties will have a new leader. And by the end of the summer, we will know if Britain is likely to tackle the single biggest threat to its prosperity and standing in the world: the gargantuan budget deficit, 12.6 per cent of GDP and counting.

The election will divide the year. Until election day, the last remaining bubble in Britain — that of public spending — will be protected. Gordon Brown will fall back on his old narrative: that the Tories would cut. But he will also add that the Tories will raise taxes to boot. This is, of course, correct: tax rises and spending cuts will be the medicine prescribed by whoever wins the election. The Tories will try to counter that they are being straight with the public and that Labour’s denial will lead to a fiscal crisis and higher borrowing rates.

Local elections are scheduled for 6 May, and this remains the most likely date for a general election — although all parties like to destabilise each other by pretending they want an earlier deadline. The Tories would like to recreate the fiasco over the October 2007 election-that-never-was — by building up expectations of a March election and then claiming that Gordon Brown has ‘bottled’ it again. But May suits all of them better: more time to prepare for the Tories, and more time for something to turn up for the Prime Minister.