Recognition

Two MPs made Dames, indicating whom David Cameron and Ed Miliband have to keep sweet.

Dame Angela Watkinson MP, ardent Tory social conservative (and Eurosceptic), whose listing as a supporter of same-sex "marriage" must surely be the most abject of wishful thinking.

And Dame Margaret Beckett MP, ardent Labour Eurosceptic (and tellingly still undeclared on the marriage question), and therefore one of Labour MPs' three representatives on the National Executive Committee, an all-Eurosceptic contest, never mind result.

Add to them the newly appointed Sir Richard Shepherd MP.

2013 may not turn out to be so bad after all.