Following a failed bid for the Tory leadership in 2016, Leadsom briefly served as Environment Secretary before becoming Leader of the House of Commons following June’s snap election. What followed was an almighty gaffe when commenting on the launch of the new £10 note featuring an image of Jane Austen, with the politician referring to the famously long-dead writer as “one of our greatest living authors”. Leadsom was later accused of failing to act on a rape allegation that was reportedly made against a senior Conservative Party member earlier this year. (Getty)

In one of the most bizarre political stories of the year, International Development Secretary Priti Patel was forced to apologise for undisclosed talks with political figures while on a “family holiday” in Israel. It later transpired that she had two further unauthorised meetings which she did not own up to while making her original apology. She also originally claimed that Boris Johnson knew about the trip, but later conceded that the Foreign Office had no prior knowledge of it. As the farce played out and the likelihood of Patel being sacked grew, she was ordered to cut short her trip to Africa to return to Downing Street for an urgent meeting with Theresa May. Patel ‘resigned’ two days later.
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At the age of 39, Emmanuel Macron became the youngest President in French history when he beat National Front candidate Marine Le Pen in the second and final round of the election. Despite high hopes for the young French leader, polls show that Macron’s popularity has plummeted since he came to power because of what aides refer to as his “Jupiterian” presidential style — distant and grand. (Getty)

Former IRA commander McGuinness, who served as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland for a decade, resigned in January due to ill health and passed away two months later. Always a controversial figure, McGuinness played an important role in the peace process but following his death, he was branded ‘a multi-murderer and a coward’ by former Conservative minister Norman Tebbit. Lord Tebbit’s wife Margaret was paralysed in the 1984 IRA bombing of the Grand Brighton Hotel which left five people dead and many more injured. The attack was an attempt to assassinate then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet. (Getty)

Despite a failed bid at the Tory Party leadership in 2016, the Foreign Secretary remains the hot favourite to take over from Theresa May. The PM has been under pressure to drop the former Mayor of London from her Cabinet following a series of high-profile gaffes and controversial interventions. Most notably, Johnson was forced to apologise over his handling of the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who faces seeing her prison sentence extended in Iran because of his intervention. Voters have since turned on the bumbling politician who saw his approval ratings crash towards the end of the year. (Getty)

The SNP cemented its position as Scotland’s largest party in the 2017 Scottish local elections. But while the Brexit referendum result raised the chance of a second Scottish independence referendum, the First Minister put plans for a vote on hold in an unexpected U-turn. The leader of the Scottish National Party said it was important to wait until “the terms of Brexit are known” before going ahead with another vote on independence. Meanwhile, a shocking survey revealed that 12% of Britons don’t ‘consider’ Scottish people to be British. (Getty)

The shadow Home Secretary has had a tough year, including an excruciating car crash of an interview in which she fumbled her numbers on police spending on live radio and another where she couldn’t recall any of the 127 recommendations in 2016’s anti-terror report. Plagued by a series of media gaffes, Abbott was later temporarily replaced due to ill health, which was said to have accounted for her below-par interview performances. (Getty)

By his own remarkable standards, Jeremy Corbyn has had a quieter year than previously. After a remarkable showing in the election – in which he outperformed all expectations to lead the party to its biggest gain in a general election since 1945 – Corbyn reportedly claimed that he would be PM in six months. Since then, he has failed to ram home the advantage. According to one poll conducted in November, Labour has a two-point lead over the Tories – but he falls behind Theresa May in terms of trust over the economy. Tony Blair, a long-time Corbyn critic, has said Labour should have opened up a healthy advantage by now. (Getty)

The PM’s snap election in June backfired spectacularly – and the rest of the year didn’t get much better. Just days after the election, in which the Conservatives lost their overall majority – a massive two-thirds of the Tory Party members called on her to resign, and she has since been facing mounting pressure to quit. Even the PM’s big attempt to reset the narrative went spectacularly wrong when her disastrous Conservative Party Conference speech was hit by a series of blunders, including a prankster handing her a mock P45. She remains at the helm of a split Cabinet going into 2018 – but only just.
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The billionaire businessman was an unlikely candidate to be a successful politician, never mind the most powerful man in the world. But Donald Trump was sworn in as U.S. President on 20 January, and has since been the subject of countless gaffes and controversies, including threatening to start a nuclear war with North Korea. In November, a U.S. congressman introduced new articles of impeachment against President Trump, claiming that several of his actions during his time in office are ‘violations of the U.S. Constitution’. The ‘holding hands‘ moment between him and Theresa May was one if the most memorable images of the year. (Getty)