The year ahead

Jill Grieve (London, The Countryside Alliance): 2008 could be a big year for rural Britain. A host of bills and important landmarks await:

6^th February - the winners of the Countryside Alliance's third annual Best Rural Retailer competition will be announced - check bestruralretailer.co.uk for regional winners. The competition seeks to celebrate rural Britain through the retailers who work so hard to keep their communities together.

Normal Mouth (Rhondda, blogger): After a genuinely tumultuous and probably momentous 2007, the augers for 2008 in Wales seem on the surface to be more mundane. It is true that every council seat is up for election, but this holds the prospect only of modest retreat for Labour, given that its base is already so eroded from four years ago.

Beneath the immediate and visible, however, and there is reason to suppose that this year will deliver much of interest. It will be a proving year for Plaid Cymru, as they wrestle against subsumption in the coalition administration. But Plaid will not respond by delivering its vaunted assessment of the feasibility of Welsh independence, despite the promise of distinctiveness that would hold out. In Ieuan Wyn Jones the party boasts a skillful and serious but ultimately cautious leader. He will regard 2008 as a proving year of a different order, namely one in which his party can establish its bona fides as a party of government. Firing up the independence debate amidst this objective looks at best a distraction, at worst reckless.

J Clive Matthews (London, Europhobia): Ignore the stop-gap measure that is the new EU reform treaty and all the attendant calls for referenda. The really important developments for the future of the EU - and for the UK's relationship with the rest of Europe - will not be governed by bits of paper this year. Nor will they be decided from within the EU's borders.

Roger Smith (London, JUSTICE): 2008 marks a decade since the Human Rights Act was passed, in those first carefree days of the Blair administration. Its anniversary will be marked by a politically charged row over the number of days that alleged terrorists can be detained before charge; a heavyweight battle over whether the Act should morph into a Bill of Rights; and the so far unanswered question of what difference the newly created Equalities and Human Rights Commission will make.

John Palmer (London): With a sigh of relief, but also with an increasingly nervous scan of what may be coming over the international horizon, the European Union enters 2008 - a year which will put the durability of European integration to some demanding tests.

The relief comes from the likely prospect that the EU Reform Treaty - the re-written version of the blighted "Constitutional Treaty" - will be ratified by all 27 EU Member States by the year end or very shortly thereafter. There are still some difficult obstacles to be surmounted - not least ratification by the UK Parliament and Ireland's referendum. But in both cases approval seems distinctly more likely than rejection and nowhere else is there a realistic prospect of the Reform Treaty being rejected.

Tony Curzon Price (London, oD): 2008 will see the start of a recession that will do all the work left undone by other failures, to turn the Brown era into a sad trail of failed promises. The recession starts in the USA. The Fed will soon slash interest rates, thus saving Wall Street while massively reducing the price of all dollar goods even further than they have been. UK banks and the City will continue to look shaky -- watch the Commercial Property Loans portfolios and derivatives going awry -- and the Bank of England will be expected to slash interest rates. The pound will tumble on expectations that Mervyn King will comply. Book your UK seaside holiday destinations early this year, they will be popular.

Stuart Weir & Andrew Blick (Cambridge & London, Democratic Audit): It's just like the buses. We have been waiting decades for reforms to the Royal Prerogative, now three are to appear at once. But don't hold your breath. At the end of January the government is due to publish its draft constitutional reform bill - or, as they sometimes describe it, the 'Constitutional Renewal Bill'. If only. When it appears we will know for certain about a number of key decisions relating to the reform of the Royal Prerogative, under which ministers can act without being subject to proper democratic accountability. Various campaigners have been struggling for many years to make this range of powers - which includes within it war-making, treaty-making, the conduct of diplomacy, regulating the Civil Service and granting mercy - subject to parliamentary oversight. But how far will the government go?

Peter Facey (London, Unlock Democracy): 2008 is set to be an important and busy year for democratic reformers, but it will also be a mixed one with some real opportunities, but also great dangers.This contrast is at its clearest in relation to our rights and freedoms: we have the real possibility of making progress on a proper Bill of Rights (which may come in January / February - though this, like all other dates given here, is merely guesswork); but at the same time we have the continued dangers of ID cards, the database state and government plans to extend detention without trial from an already too long 28 days to 42.

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): 2008 is set to be an interesting year for English parliament campaigners, but we shall have to wait until the Democracy Task Force publishes its findings before we see the battlefield mapped out before us. The Task Force will recommend a form of English Votes on English Matters - most probably Malcolm Rifkind's Grand Committee - but the Conservative Party will drag its heels (the report is already almost a year late) in adopting this as policy for fear of being labelled 'anti-Scottish' and allowing Brown to claim the mantle of 'Defender of the Union'.

Rupert Read (Norwich, The Green Party): My first prediction is that a news event that is already today ongoing will be big, and will run and run. New Labour are determined to push nuclear power through, this year. This will arouse huge opposition. It is a litmus-test issue for any politician wishing to don green clothing. Because it is a lie that nuclear is a low carbon source of energy: if, as one must, one factors in the energy needed for mining, transporting and processing uranium, and if (as one must, and this is crucial) one includes the vast amount of energy needed to decommission monitor and protect nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years, then nuclear ends up with a stupendously huge carbon footprint.

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): 2008 could bring major changes for the territorial departments representing the devolved nations in Whitehall, as a result of the outworking of the St Andrew's Agreement in Northern Ireland.

Under the deal agreed in October 2006, policing and justice powers are due to be devolved to the Stormont Executive by May this year. Both Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward and Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams emphasised the importance of this commitment in their respective new year's messages.