London Letter: 'Tis the season and time to name the movers and shakers, winners (and maybe also some losers) of 2007.
Queen Elizabeth will publish the New Year's Honours list at the end of next week, amid rumours that one Cherie Booth may have been persuaded to accept a peerage.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has also triggered renewed debate about an Irish honours system. Perhaps someone will sponsor the idea of a special Anglo-Irish award, to be struck jointly by the British monarch and Irish President, in recognition of services to the ever-deepening and widening British Irish relationship.
In the meantime the "London Letter" maintains tradition and, with the help of an ad-hoc group of friends of The Irish Times, reveals its own roll call in honour of those who shone in a dramatic year in British politics and a truly historic one for the Northern Ireland peace process.
After some hesitation (given the speed with which it all went sour) the "Winner of the Year" still has to be Gordon Brown, who achieved his lifelong ambition in winning unopposed election as Labour leader and prime minister.
However, the "Prime Minister of the Year" was unquestionably Tony Blair. Against most expectations he ended his long farewell on something of a high, delivering a new political settlement at Stormont, and Labour's promised "orderly transition", before a brilliant final performance at the despatch box prompting that unprecedented standing ovation on (nearly) all sides of the House of Commons.
And by general consensus the title "Prospective Prime Minister" now firmly belongs to David Cameron.
His Conservative leadership was mired in doubt by mid-summer, yet his virtuoso, without-notes speech to the Tory conference in Blackpool had people almost believing he wanted the "snap" election Gordon Brown finally decided not to call.
Cameron's revival was clearly aided by Brown's "bottling it" and his subsequent suggestion that Labour's shrinking poll lead had played no part in his decision.
Brown's uncontested "Porky of the Year" might also have earned Cameron the award for "Best Sound-Bite" for his withering observation that this prime minister was the first in history "to flunk an election because he thought he was going to win it". However the more enduring is likely to prove acting Lib Dem leader Vince Cable's cutting depiction of Brown's terrible transformation "from Stalin to Mr Bean".
Cameron's resurgence was also aided by shadow chancellor George Osborne, who showed himself the "Surprise Performer of the Year" with that conference announcement on planned inheritance tax cuts that left the Tory faithful gasping and saw Brown and chancellor Alistair Darling mount a smash-and-grab raid on the Conservative closet.
Brown's misfortunes, this time in his political backyard, also saw SNP leader Alex Salmond emerge as "Politician of the Year", following his stunning one-seat victory over Labour and election as first minister in the minority nationalist administration at Holyrood.
Readers might have expected that accolade to land closer to home. Yet somehow it seemed inadequate to describe the DUP leader's decision not just finally to share power but to jointly lead a new Northern Ireland Executive with Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness.
So the newly created "Eoghan Harris Prize for Slaughtering Sacred Cows in the Practice of Realpolitik" goes to Northern Ireland First Minister the Rev Ian Paisley. Not that Dr Paisley might say it, but he really couldn't have done it on his own. DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson played a crucial role in breaking the British-Irish deadline for devolution, while maximising party unity and paving the way for the direct negotiations that led to Dr Paisley's memorable public appearance with Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams.
Robinson is also assuming central importance in ensuring the smooth working of the Stormont partnership and ends the year immeasurably strengthened in terms of the future leadership. So Peter Robinson is jointly named "Man to Watch" alongside Nick Clegg, the newly elected Liberal Democrat leader tasked with repelling David Cameron's continued assault on the centre ground of British politics.
The final award, for "Visionary of the Year", goes to Bertie Ahern. Whatever his domestic difficulties and preoccupations, Ahern enjoyed a remarkable and deserved cross-party tribute when he addressed both Houses of the British Parliament in May.
Tony Blair said his friend had "never given up" in the quest for peace in Northern Ireland - a peace now based, as Ahern told the lords and MPs, on the "unchallengeable consensus" that constitutional change there can only come about through freely given consent.
It was Ahern's original engagement with David Trimble that enabled the Belfast Agreement, without which in turn Paisley's historic trip to Dublin this year would have remained but a pipe dream.
With Gordon Brown sitting in the front row, the Taoiseach drew on his long experience and commitment to deliver a caution to Blair's successor.
"Our mutual relations merit priority at the highest level," he told him. "Remembering where we have come from, we must never, ever, take for granted the stability and the hope that are now taking root in Northern Ireland."
Merry Christmas.