2017, the Year in ReviewTheresa May: hubris and nemesis

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Major's recently re-elected Tory government lost its self-styled reputation for competence after being forced to withdraw sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) on the infamous Black Wednesday.

May's decision to call a snap election stands as the definitive unforced error by a modern leader and will define her premiership regardless in much the same way.

To call an election less than two years after the Tories had secured their first overall majority in 23 years, only to then lose that advantage and to once again have to rely on another party - this time Ulster's hardline DUP - to sustain it in office represents a spectacular own goal without parallel in modern history.

Had May opted against an early poll, the huge uncertainty and chaos over Brexit would still have raged unabated just as it did throughout the year, like a seemingly never ending soap opera.

But domestic and international difficulties aside, many of which she would be able to attribute to her predecessor, it's highly unlikely, the talk would have been about when May's time in Downing Street ends rather than if.

The SNP ends the year as it began as the third biggest party in the Commons, well ahead of the Lib Dems. But the loss of 21 seats to Tory and Labour opponents leaves ousted SNP MPs as a group to rival Tories who found themselves out of a job as a consequence of the early election being called.

The performance of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party was every bit as much the story of the 2017 election, as was May's failure to retain and build on her overall majority in the House of Commons.

Back in February, Corbyn came to address Scottish Labour's conference in Perth in the most miserable of circumstances, just days after the party lost a by-election in Copeland Cumbria - the first time an opposition party had done so in decades.

As Corbyn faced fresh criticism from within his party and calls to step down with Labour's polling figures at a 30 year low, May clearly smelt blood.

May got another scent weeks later, when Nicola Sturgeon dramatically announced plans to allow a second independence referendum before Brexit but received a lukewarm reception from a vote-weary electorate.

The Prime Minister clearly sensed a chance to wipe out her opponents, most notably reducing Labour to a rump aside from a few remaining citadels in northern English cities like Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester, in a way would go beyond the party's 1983 defeat at the hands of Thatcher.

There was also a desire to finally bring the SNP to heel after ten years of dominance.

A chance to mop up the residue of UKIP support, with the party imploding, proved too much for May to resist.

Of course the Tory success in Scotland in June's election, with the party taking 12 seats off the SNP, dealt a hammer blow to the prospects of a second independence referendum.

UKIP was also effectively finished off as a political force in June's election.

But the story that didn't go to script was that of Jeremy Corbyn supposedly being on course to lead Labour to a historic meltdown that would see him forced out as leader with the so-called "moderates" taking back control of the party.

Corbyn increasing the number of seats won by Labour was something a leader of the party last did in 1997 - the year of Tony Blair's first New Labour landslide.

Of course, Corbyn also led Labour to a third successive defeat and the party has a huge amount of ground to make up if it is to win an overall majority or even become the biggest party at the next General Election.

However, all this has to be remembered in the context of the endless predictions, sometimes gleeful and sometimes lamentable, that Labour was heading for a hammering and that the Tories were likely to win a majority of well over 100.

Much has been made of Corbyn's popularity on social media and the huge youth vote in his favour.

But the fact that Labour took seats from the Tories in areas such Canterbury and Kensington suggests there was more at play than this.

In the aftermath of the election, there was predictably a moving of the goalposts from Corbyn's detractors who said that Labour gaining 30 seats at Westminster was nothing to particularly boast about.

Regardless of the challenges Corbyn faces, what his gains arguably did was debunk the central plank of Blairism based around a claim that Labour can only win from the right and that any sort of left wing party at Westminster is unelectable.

There are those among New Labour's ranks who clearly find that's something for which they can never forgive Corbyn.

Corbyn also found himself under growing pressure to square the circle over his party's EU policy.

While moving closer towards backing a soft Brexit, the Labour leadership has at times appeared also to be embracing a Eurosceptic stance.

Corbyn has perhaps been caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, with a need to woo Brexit supporters in northern English constituencies while balancing the need to win over progressive and metropolitan Remain voters.

Elsewhere, the non-stop Brexit negotiations trundled on throughout the year, at time veering perilously close to outright collapse.

In fact it would take a risk to the Irish peace process - through the spectre of a border across the island of Ireland - for Theresa May to obtain a result of any kind.

Although the deal was hailed as a rip roaring success by May's Tory acolytes, within days it had already run into difficulties with a Commons defeat and the other EU nations making a fresh plea for clarity about the Prime Minister's Brexit plans.

Certainly any early New Year difficulties in May's Brexit talks will not come as any surprise at all.