Politics: Get ready for a year of upheavals

This will be the year of the political identity crisis.

This will be the year of the political identity crisis. As we enter 2011, all three major parties are having internal debates about who they are and what they stand for. Add to that the fact that there is discontent in the ranks of all three parties and it makes for a particularly volatile combination. It could turn out to be even more dramatic politically than 2010.

The past 12 months have transformed the Liberal Democrats. At the beginning of the year, they were perceived as the most harmless of political parties, the one that actors could safely endorse without hurting their image. Nobody could be bothered to hate them. By the end of the year, however, their leader was being burnt in effigy and Lib Dem MPs were taking advice on how to deal with letter bombs.

It has not been an easy transition.