From his fortress in Fife, Gordon Brown told us in his New Year�s message that 2009 �won�t be easy�. It might, 12 months from now, turn out to be the understatement of the year.
From his fortress in Fife, Gordon Brown told us in his New Year's message that 2009 "won't be easy". It might, 12 months from now, turn out to be the understatement of the year.
Yet having suffered and survived the tortures in the political crucible that was 2008, one might forgive the Prime Minister for becoming a Panglossian optimist among a nation of pessimists.
There were times over the last 12 months when it seemed Gordy was a goner.
As the credit crunch, post-Northern Rock, continued to wreak havoc across the banking sector, the PM's and Labour's poll ratings continued to tumble. Add the 10p tax rate fiasco, limp performances at PMQs and the humiliating defeat at the Glasgow East by-election, and many Labour MPs were casting round for a successor.
As the summer holidays ended and the party conference season approached, a drama began to unfold as government aides quit, reaching a climax with the farewell from government of David Cairns, the Scotland Office minister, who made clear he had simply lost confidence in Mr Brown as Prime Minister.
However, something remarkable was also happening that would turn politics on its head.
Events in America, with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the takeover of Merrill Lynch, began to bolster the UK Government line that the economic crisis was a truly global phenomenon. Politicians, economists and commentators began to express deep fears about a financial Armageddon.
The credit crunch and its effects on the banks and markets dominated the subsequent Conservative conference and for a very brief period led to a party political truce as the UK Government unveiled its £500bn bank bailout plan.
When Mr Brown's recapitalisation plan was emulated around the world, his poll ratings began to rise and Labour, remarkably, began to close the gap on the Tories.
The Glenrothes by-election, once a surefire write-off for Labour, in the end became a surprisingly comfortable win for the governing party.
Political gravity was being reversed as Mr Brown once again adopted the mantle of global chancellor.
Even his reputation as a risk-averse ditherer seemed to vanish as the PM shocked everyone by bringing back into Cabinet the twice-resigned Peter Mandelson.
The Tories, who had ditched the bipartisan line in favour of attacking the UK Government's handling of the economic crisis, were failing to gain traction on financial matters as Mr Brown's denunciation of David Cameron's team as the "do nothing party" began to bite.
The pre-Budget report - with its tax cuts, surge in borrowing, spending increases and tax hikes for the future - emphasised not only Labour's clear red water with the Tories but also the colossal scale of Mr Brown's gamble for the months ahead.
There will be many key dates in 2009 but two to look out for will be in late February and late August.
The first will reveal the length of Britain's unemployment queue, which is likely to top two million. The second will confirm whether or not the PM is right that Britain's recession will end in the second quarter.
There has been much talk of an early poll in May this year. Ministers have dismissed it but they would, wouldn't they?
The PM has apparently commissioned a poll of marginal seats; it was these figures that led Mr Brown to ditch the early General Election in 2007. But now he has Mr Mandelson uttering softly-spoken calculated advice in his ear. What will he tell him? Be bold or hold firm?
One senior ex-Cabinet minister recently told me there was a strong case for going early: the Prime Minister has set out his stall for the next few years, saying how he would lead the country from the slough of the recession to the sunlit uplands of renewed growth. There is a clear fundamental difference with the Tories' approach - things will only get worse before they get better. Why wait?
Yet going to the country this May rather than next might lead the voters to smell a rather large rat - namely, that the recovery will not begin this year as the Treasury predicts and that Mr Brown is cynically manipulating events for his party's rather than the country's needs.
Such is the volatility of public opinion, which seems to blow hot or cold with each passing headline, one would not envy the PM's decision.
Mr Brown's instinct will probably tell him to ride out the storm and hope the economy turns round in time for a poll on May 6, 2010. But it is a mighty gamble that could cost him his premiership and see Mr Cameron sitting on a hefty parliamentary majority in Downing Street.
