Politics | 20 December 2008

Judging the Threadneedle/Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards is far from an onerous task. There are two splendid lunches, plenty of wine, first-rate gossip and more than a little argument. The deliberations are secret, but I can perhaps share with you an unexpected debate that took place when we were deciding who to name as Politician of the Year. Boris Johnson emerged a clear and deserving winner. But en route, as we pondered our options, another candidate, nominated for serious consideration, was Gordon Brown.

There were a few objections around the table, to put it mildly, mainly along the lines that Mr Brown is a deplorable villain. It is safe to say that the PM would have struggled to command a consensus on the panel. Yet the case for him was irritatingly strong. In the summer, after all, he had been written off by everyone. Discipline in his Cabinet had collapsed so badly that leaks would arrive by text message, in real time, before the meeting was over. Newspapers conducted polls asking if a worse Prime Minister had ever lived. Most concluded not.

Yet this Christmas he stands triumphant, a stout Scot has risen from a furnace that only six months ago threatened to incinerate the entire Labour party. ‘No matter how many gaffes he makes,’ fumed one Cameroon, ‘he still seems to be closing that damn opinion poll gap.’ Bookmakers now consider a spring election the most likely scenario. The Labour benches, which once looked funereal, have sprung to life at Prime Minister’s Questions.

So should 2008 be considered the Year of Gordon Brown? There are Labour MPs who say so — some even offering biblical references about the stone which the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone. Lord Mandelson talks about the Prime Minister as a ‘Moses figure’ leading the British public from recession to a ‘promised land’.