No matter their differences, Starmer and Sunak face the same obstacle | Larry Elliott

Whether it's Labour plan for renewal or the Tory path to recovery, both remain hostage to circumstance in 2023

Think back 12 months to January 2022. Boris Johnson was prime minister and had resisted calls for a lockdown in response to the Omicron variant of Covid-19. It was assumed inflationary pressure from post-pandemic supply-chain bottlenecks would soon abate. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was still several weeks away. There were rumblings of discontent in the Labour party at Sir Keir Starmer's failure to register a commanding opinion-poll lead.

All of which is a way of making the point that a lot can happen - to the economy and in politics - in the course of a year. And given that the next election is not going to be held until 2024 it would be unwise to assume the next year will be any more predictable.