Scotland:Gordon Brown suffered a major setback even while preparing to move into 10 Downing Street when the Scottish National Party edged one seat ahead of Labour to win a historic victory in the Holyrood elections.
Though he would subsequently be forced to form a minority administration, SNP first minister Alex Salmond lost no time proclaiming Labour's "divine right to rule" in Scotland at an end.
Salmond promised his party would govern in the national interest as former presiding officer Lord (David) Steel warned him there was no majority in the new parliament for Scottish independence and "nothing he can do about that".
As the final results were declared Salmond anticipated the emergence of "a progressive coalition" ensuring stability into the four-year parliament.
However Liberal Democrat leader Nicol Stephen rejected the option of a new powersharing deal when Salmond refused to abandon his party's commitment to hold a referendum on Scottish independence by 2010.
With the backing of just two Green MSPs, Salmond formed an executive which promptly ignored the Westminster legislation establishing it and announced it would in future be known as the Scottish government.
Labour's departing leader and first minister Jack McConnell at first refused to concede, insisting all options remained open to the majority unionist parties amid widespread predictions of instability under minority nationalist rule.
However, Salmond's personal stock and his party's popular support continued to rise, as the first minister evidenced his belief that success in governing - rather than confrontation with Westminster - might be the key to winning the longer-term debate about independence.
At the same Salmond's "government" marked 100 days in office with the publication of a White Paper initiating a "national conversation" about "the next stage of self-government", claiming it as the now "settled will" of the Scottish people that their parliament should "grow in influence and authority", while warning the unionist parties "no change is no longer an option".
Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats at least appeared to confirm that much in December when they combined to secure an alternative constitutional commission tasked to review devolution while preserving Scotland's position within the UK.
The unknown going into 2008 is whether David Cameron ("English votes on English laws") and Gordon Brown ("Just don't ask") can emulate their Scottish colleagues in a bipartisan search for an answer to a once more pressing West Lothian Question.