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.