Why is Westminster so worked up about a bill which stands no chance of being defeated? Despite a tiny (probably five-strong) Lib Dem rebellion against the welfare benefits uprating bill, it will certainly get a second reading and eventually pass into law. It didn't even need to be a bill in the first place. The only reason it exists is because George Osborne wanted some Commons theatre to publicise his policy dividing line. He wouldn't have risked it if there was any chance of it failing.

The benefits debate is not important because of the result, but because of where it puts political debate in the build up to the 2015 election. It's the front line of Conservative and Labour efforts to massage public opinion in their direction.

The polling on welfare is a mess, and that makes it malleable. The Tories think they're on to a winner because the public views out-of-work welfare payments harshly. Seventy-six per cent support stopping out-of-work benefits for people who refuse offers of

This midterm review is littered with half-truths tailored to help David Cameron and Nick Clegg cling on to power. They are complicit in the same deceits: what better reason to continue to stick together?

This review has been fashioned towards a single goal: boosting the odds of the coalition making it all the way through its self-proclaimed five-year term.

Going the distance has started to seem less certain in the last 12 months or so. Grumpy Conservative backbenchers have begun muttering about ways to kick the disrespectful Liberal Democrats out of power before 2015. Some have wondered whether the flakier Lib Dems' chances at the next election would be better without Clegg at the helm.

On a day-to-day basis, there is little the prime minister and his deputy have been able to do to head off these rumours. Today is different. Today, with that bright new year feeling of optimism making us all the more receptive to their messages, the leaders are refreshing the case for power once again.

By Dr Matt Ashton

David Cameron has claimed that he would like to stay on as prime minister after 2015 and potentially up to 2020. This isn't surprising, as he'd be a pretty poor leader if he didn't show enthusiasm for remaining in office and winning the next election. The question of when to let go of power, though, is one that that has haunted British political leaders for the last two centuries. A dignified exit is vital to a prime minister's legacy, and getting it wrong can be devastating.

This begs the question, then, of when Cameron would want to stand down. Assuming that he survives politically, he has three potential options. One is to serve until 2020 and then leave just before the election, allowing someone else to take leadership of the party. Stay on and try to win in 2020 and then serve beyond that, or finally standing down in 2017/2018, allowing a successor a two-year period to prepare for the next election. All of these possibilities have potential problems.

Cameron is

I hear Argentina is causing trouble again over the Falklands, eh?

Yes. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has placed adverts in a number of national newspapers, in which she complains about the 'blatant' colonialism displayed by us British.

Actually, when you read her advert it does seem like they have a bit of a point. The Falklands are a tiny clump of islands 8,700 miles away from mainland Britain, and they're just off the coast of Argentina. So surely they belong to them?

Their geographical location doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. They are a British Overseas Territory and as such should remain British, permanently and forever. We've even fought a war over them.

Hmmm. If you say so. Weren't the Malvinas, as Kirchner and her compatriots call them, Argentinean before they were British, though?

You might think so from reading Argentina's nationalist propaganda. Especially given the date her advert refers to, January 3rd 1833, when a Royal Naval vessel turned up and

At first glance, 2013 offers a fresh opportunity for David Cameron to show off his statesmanlike qualities. In reality, British diplomacy is up to its grubby old tricks once again.

It's simple, really. Take the EU and the US, two of the biggest players in the global economy. Combine them together to create a single market area making up one-third of its trade. Take that, China. Take that, Brazil, India, Russia. This could be Cameron's biggest contribution to the history of the planet we live on - a major shot in the arm for the nations of the industrial west, helping the most established economies on the planet fight back against the young challengers emerging from the east. A glittering prize for whoever achieves it, that's for sure.

For the first time since 2005, when the British-led Gleneagles summit notched up a real triumph for the Tony Blair/Bob Geldof combo, the UK is once again in the driving seat of the G8's presidency. Cameron has spelled out his agenda in a letter to the

Photo: Parliament/Catherine BebbingtonImpatient speculating about the fate of the coalition and bickering over the economy mask the true scale of the challenge facing Britain's politicians in 2013. It is the national crisis of confidence in the people who run this place which matters most to ordinary voters. But these are problems caused by political elites as much as fixed by them, and MPs and ministers are simply not programmed to address the true scale of the problems facing the UK. British politics in 2013 will be about important issues, but relatively petty ones.

The next 12 months will see the realities of hung parliament bite, as the coalition's midgame turns to endgame. British politics is not really suited to five-year parliaments. The tradition is one of intense anticipation in the buildup to general elections, as newspapers speculate about whether the prime minister will decide to go to the country early. Robbed of this treat by the UK's first fixed parliament, journalists and politicians will instead spend

In the US, 2012 will be remembered as the year the limitations of the Republican party's current trajectory became obvious. In the words of one analyst, the party finally ran out of 'angry white men' and Barack Obama was easily returned to the White House.

In the UK, 2012 saw the Conservatives also meet the limitations of their current trajectory, in a manner which was easier to repair but which they showed no signs of recognising.

To anyone who experienced politics in the 1980s, the current state of play in Westminster is baffling. Labour, the party which for years involved itself in seemingly irrelevant internal battles, has become impressively practical, pragmatic and focused on returning to government.

The Conservatives - still considered by many to be the natural part of government - behave more like an opposition party. Tory MPs joined with Labour to vote down plans for the EU Budget, inflicting the government's first Commons defeat, albeit on a non-binding vote. It was a

By Alex Gabriel

At Christmastime, it's fashionable for secularists to say that actually, yes, they do love Christmas. A recent article by Jim Al-Khalili, 'Why this atheist celebrates Christmas', exemplifies the trend, as do the many online memes and comments arguing there's nothing religious about gift-giving or decorated trees. "You don't need to believe in Mithras to enjoy the tradition of celebrating the sun's rebirth", one of them reads, "and you don't need to believe in Jesus Christ to enjoy the tradition of renaming this ancient holiday".

With Eric Pickles and the right-wing press united in insistence that "militant secularisation" will "allow politically correct Grinches to marginalise Christianity", it's an understandable line of response to stress that godless people, too, love the festive season. Yet not all of us do. For some of us, Christmas is hard to enjoy – and yes, religion and the privilege it enjoys play a role in this.

For a self-described 'cuddly atheist' with no