Leader – The wild, disorderly year that was

It was an exhilarating year of “who’d a thunk it” ironies, upsets and against the odds wins in which old certainties were flipped on their heads, prompting dizzy, disorientating, sometimes disturbing double takes.

The Tories won the General Election. Serial Labour rebel Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader. The late anti-war MP Tony Benn’s son Hilary evoked the ghost of Churchill to deliver a thunderous call to arms.

In Hackney, there was, as ever, the steady hand of Mayor Jules Pipe, but an unsettled air sometimes percolated. Labour-run Hackney Council was outfoxed when it proposed shooting wild animals to protect caged ones in a park where the Environment Agency had in February poisoned the fish.

As the ponds were sprayed with “piscicide”, Nazis planned a march through Stamford Hill. A twit called Joshua Bonehill, said he wanted to liberate us from “Jewification” but his ideas were, thankfully, met with ridicule.

Meanwhile, rough sleepers faced a blanket ban and the police faced extinction, a “porn free” newsagent retired, there were warnings Shoreditch was becoming Shenzhen, spies left graffiti in Old Street, cereal hipsters were attacked and Sainsbury’s was harried out of Stoke Newington.

It was an earth-moving year. There was burrowing in basements and skyscrapers were flung up everywhere.

It was the year of the gentry. It was the year of the homeless. It was the Year of the Goat.

What to conclude from such a higgledy-piggledy year – a year now ending amid ominous warnings about existential threats? Our democracy looks, in hindsight, to be in vibrant health. Wild and disorderly, yes, but alive. We should celebrate that.

In the year ahead one thing is for sure: there will be clashes of ideas, more scandal and surprise, but that is as it should be.

The lesson from 2015? Question everything, for there are no certainties and nothing on Earth is sacred. And that is exactly as it should be.

Note: This article was amended at 7:55pm on Thursday 10 December 2015. The story originally stated the Tories won a landslide, whereas in fact the Conservative party won a 12-seat majority.