The Dominion Post's political prognostications scored

Tomorrow is that most feared annual event for The Dominion Post political team; when we take our reputations in our hands and take a punt on the highlights of the coming year.

But first, it's accountability time. We have given Treasury and all the other officials some stick for forecasting errors, so how did our (not always deadly serious) efforts last year stack up? At the start of 2008, Tracy Watkins , Vernon Small and Martin Kay had the bare-faced nerve to predict:

1: It will be the most litigious election year yet as one after another lobby group flouts the letter and the spirit of the contentious Electoral Finance Act so they can drag it through the courts.

4/10 There were some challenges - ACT's self-imposed testing of the propriety, if not elegance, of Rodney Hide's canary- yellow jacket, for instance - but not as much nose-thumbing as we expected.

2: Speaker Margaret Wilson will announce her exit from politics, probably for an academic post.

10/10 Totally in order.

3: Labour's chief whip, outgoing Christchurch Central MP Tim Barnett, will opt not to go on the party list and will leave Parliament.

10/10 Even under the most liberal interpretation.

4: Labour will announce tax cuts worth about $25 a week to most taxpayers, but National will go several steps further by unveiling a programme of tax cuts.

7/10 Labour announced a programme too, but National's were bigger overall.

5: Green co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons will wait till after the election to announce her retirement date.

10/10 And we are still waiting, but it shouldn't be long now.

6: Labour will hold just two Maori seats after the 2008 election.

10/10 Sorry, Mahara Okeroa, but we were on the ball.

7: Clem Simich, Richard Worth and Eric Roy will fight it out for the Speaker's job if National wins office, but they might all miss out to Peter Dunne if National needs his vote.

2/10 Dunne may have been in line but turned it down - and they did not need his vote. Worth was keen, Roy was in line but Lockwood Smith was a bolt from the blue.

8: Another senior Cabinet minister will announce their retirement at the next election and it won't come as much of a surprise.

8/10 And it's goodbye to Michael Cullen and Steve Maharey . . . though marks off because no one could say Helen Clark's resignation came as no surprise.

9: For the second year in a row, National will go the whole year without any leadership speculation.

10/10 Blush - we really don't deserve any points for that one.

10: NZ First MP Brian Donnelly will finally announce his departure for a posting as high commissioner in the Cook Islands.

10/10 Sadly Mr Donnelly later died.

11: His leader, Winston Peters, will fail to win back his old Tauranga seat but his party will be back in Parliament after it scrapes past the 5 per cent threshold.

5/10 Right. Wrong.

12: Mr Peters will get another term as foreign affairs minister whichever party forms the next government.

0/10 Even if he had made it back, he would not have been offered the post. Typical media, never get it right . . .

13: A scandal bubbling below the surface will be made public in 2008.

10/10 Winston Peters and his donations/ secret trust funds brought the man down.

14: The economy will be the major theme of the election, despite the current benign conditions, as growth slows, interest rates stay high and home owners feel increasingly squeezed.

8/10 Mostly on the money, but interest rates were sliding by election day.

15: National will stand Richard Worth in Epsom again - as clear a signal as the good voters of Epsom need that it's got no interest in wresting the seat back from ACT leader Rodney Hide.

10/10 Cynical, yet accurate.

16: Finance Minister Michael Cullen will deliver a boring Budget that outlines tax cuts but the big bang and big bucks will be saved for the election campaign.

4/10 We got the tax cuts, but by the time the election came around no one could afford to spend up large.

17: Outgoing Labour MP Steve Maharey will stay on till very close to the election because Prime Minister Helen Clark won't want to risk governing with one vote fewer.

9/10 He stayed the distance.

18: Labour will revive its 2005 "don't put it all at risk" campaign theme for John Key, but it's unlikely to have the same bite as it did against former National leader Don Brash.

6/10 The trust theme and the attack on Key's experience were variations on a theme, but not close enough.

19: The Greens and the Maori Party will get increasingly cosy in the lead-up to the election as they see the benefits of pooling their votes for more negotiating muscle.

4/10: They tried - on and off - but there were some rocks in the road and in the end they went their own way.

20: Finally, after extensive research including the time- honoured consultative method of sticking a wet finger in the air, we feel we can confidently predict that National will win the most votes on election night. But the vagaries of MMP (see 11 and 19 above) mean it may be weeks before we know whether that will be enough for National to form a government.

1/10 Mr Peters' demise made a monkey of this prediction and Mr Key rubbed it in by forming a government before the ink was dry on the election results.

HOW WE DID

We scored 138/200 in a result that was independently (and harshly) audited by a rival office. We might blame Winston Peters for most of the lost points.

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