Awards of the year: Recap of notable political moments

Just as legions of Britons remember the wonder of watching the televised crowning of Queen Elizabeth II, Penny Mordaunt’s starring role in King Charles’s coronation has entered modern mythology.

She chose not to wear the traditional black robes of the Lord President of the Council. Instead, she staged
a couture coup when she arrived at Westminster Abbey in a specially commissioned outfit in Poseidon teal with matching cape and headband.

Ms Mordaunt then displayed true athletic prowess by carrying the Sword of State and the Jewelled Sword of Offering for more than an hour. Former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell said he was in “awe” or her arm and shoulder strength, and she admitted to “doing some press-ups”.

Ms Mordaunt has twice run for the Tory leadership. And her bravura performance at the Coronation has done nothing to dent speculation she could throw a (no doubt elegantly embroidered) hat into the ring a third time.

There are many places Rishi Sunak could have chosen to announce the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester.

This was a chance to focus attention on other forms of transport by breaking the news from inside a submarine or on horseback in his Yorkshire constituency.

Instead, he told the world from the stage of the Conservative Party conference in… Manchester.

If Oasis ever reforms it’s unlikely Liam and Noel will invite him to provide backing vocals.

It must have been a moment of stomach-tangling horror for Scottish health minister Michael Mat-heson when he discovered he had come back from a family holiday in Morocco with an £10,935.74 data-roaming charge on his iPad.

To make matters worse, the bill was racked up by his sons watching football.

This nightmare incident will do nothing to stop parents worrying about their children’s screen time.

People queuing up to a Sir Keir Starmer conference speech rarely worry the excitement will be more than they can bear but this year’s outing in Liverpool was certifiably dramatic.

In a scarcely believable breach of security, a protester bounded on to the stage and showered the would-be prime minister in glitter.

This had the odd effect of injecting the event with a new vitality. Sir Keir took off his now-sparkling jac-ket and delivered his speech with his sleeves rolled up.

He seized the moment to deliver a jab at any remaining Corbynistas: “Protest not power; that’s why we chan-ged our party, conference.”

Labour is now flogging a “Sparkle With Starmer” T-shirt on its website at £20 a pop. That’s capitalism, folks!

The Thick of It’s Malcolm Tucker has nothing on Education Secretary Gillian Kee-gan.

Amid the panic about crumbling concrete in schools, she was caught on camera expressing her frustration in quite fruity fashion.

“Does anyone ever say,” she asked, “‘You know what, you’ve done a ****ing good job, because everyone else has sat on their a*** and done nothing?’”

Alas, in politics, no.

The SNP once looked like the Ben Nevis of political parties – a giant, unmovable entity of fearsome repute that dominated the landscape. But from the moment Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation as First Minister in February, Scotland has echoed with the sounds of a once-­hegemonic party cracking and crumbling.

It reached the point in April when new First Minister Humza Yousaf had to insist he was “surprised” at the arrest of the party’s treasurer. “Of course I’m surprised when one of my colleagues is arrested,” he said.

Rishi Sunak’s video update about the Government’s levelling-up spending was never going to rival the stunts in Steve McQueen’s car chase in Bullitt – but it did bring him down to Earth with a bump.

Some sharp-eyed viewers noticed the Prime Minister recorded his message while sitting in the back of a moving vehicle without wearing a seatbelt. This prompted Lancashire Police to take a look and he was hit with a fixed penalty notice.

The PM apologised for the debacle but it could be one reason he seems to prefer spending time in helicopters.

Boris Johnson burst back into the headlines in June with the revelation that a Cabinet colleague shed weight with near-miraculous results thanks to an appetite-destroying “magic potion”.

For “us fatties”, he announced, “there is such a thing as satiety – and science has found it”.

This is not the type of intervention politicos had expected. How long before the blond barnstormer seeks to eclipse Joe Wicks and Jane Fonda by pulling on the Lycra and releasing his own exercise videos?

When Joe Biden welcomed Rishi Sunak to the White House in June he called the PM “Mr President”.

The Tory leader, who has an impressive track record of getting to the top of organisations, did not seem too startled at
the US President apparently declaring the United Kingdom a republic and elevating him to head of state.

The real president corrected himself: “I’m just promoting you! Mr Prime Minister, it’s great to have you back.”

Times are certainly tough for young people but in July former Boris Johnson aide Charlotte Owen joined the House of Lords at the ripe not-so-old age of 30.

We hope she enjoys decades of happy public service on the red benches.

The rivalry between two of the country’s most famous Old Etonians shows no signs of fading. David Cameron has taken to his new job as Foreign Secretary with enough relish to supply a thousand hamburger stands.

And when he made his first speech in the House of Lords he could not resist roasting his arch-rival, Brexit-deliverer Boris Johnson.

Mr Johnson had used his farewell address last year to compare himself to a Roman statesman who was called away from his humble life as a farmer to save the republic from invasion.

Commentators with a grasp of classical civilisation saw this as a signal he is very open to a political comeback. Lord Cameron said he had not spent his time out of office “waiting to be asked – how shall I put it? – to take back control”.

“Nor,” he went on, “am I Cincinnatus, hovering over my plough. I leave all classical allusions – and illusions, for that matter – to another former prime minister with whom I shared a number of educational experiences.”