I'VE A CHRISTMAS quiz question for you. Who is the greatest policy innovator of Labour’s second term? Struggling? Here’s a hint. He’s not a Cabinet Minister. He’s not even a member of the Labour Party. He’ll be back in the party pretty soon. Give up? It’s the politician formerly known as Red Ken. A Downing Street policy wonk recently asked me that question. He was in no doubt that congestion charging was one of the few history-shaping decisions taken during this Parliament.

Think about it. Would the Department for Transport have risked even a study on a “total toll system” for Britain’s roads before Mayor Livingstone? John Prescott’s vigorous response would, I suspect, have been unprintable (as were the words he used, incidentally, to greet reporters inquiring about his views on letting Ken back into the party). Pressa can fairly argue that he, not Livingstone, drove through the legislation which allowed congestion charging not just in London but elsewhere too. Yet the real political risk was in actually charging motorists.

THIS BRINGS ME to another few posers: if Mayor Ken had still been in the party would he have been so bold? Would the party have let him experiment with congestion charges? Wouldn’t the spin doctors have panicked at the damage he might do? After all, the man Labour chose to run for mayor did so on a platform which opposed charges — in the short term, at least. Might not ministers have actively opposed the scheme instead of sitting on the sidelines? With Ken outside the party they knew (and privately hoped) that his success would change the politics of transport for good. If he failed they could claim it was nothing to do with them.

So, never mind the benefits for Labour or Ken, will their reunion encourage more innovation or less? Will it be better for public life or worse? There’s no inherent reason why political parties should stifle risk-taking and free-thinking. It’s just that up till now they ( I do mean all of them) have tended to do so.

I PRESENTED KEN with a gong the other day for being voted “Politician of the Year”. “It’s usual,” he said, “to thank people at times like this, but may I say to the assembled media: thanks for nothing.” After so much naysaying on the congestion charge, he told journalists to ask themselves what they had done to make public life better in the past year. I’ve been pondering his words ever since.

ONE CAUSE FOR cautious optimism was the capture of Saddam. On hearing the news, I dashed to Downing Street. It was a time to marvel at the technology which allowed our White House correspondent and our man on the road to Tikrit to bring the news live. But I soon realised that I had missed the most dramatic moment: the iconic shot of a bedraggled Saddam. Technology again came to the rescue. I called up the picture on my Palm pilot (connected to the internet via mobile phone) and handed it round a growing band of expectant journalists. Extraordinary.

HOURS LATER, ITV News’s Julian Manyon made it to the site of Saddam’s arrest: the first British television reporter to do so. Others had not wanted to leave their Bagdhad satellite dishes to make the treacherous journey. Manyon got his scoop on tape before hurtling back to transmit it. On the way he had to battle through street protests, road blocks and who knows what other delights the Sunni Triangle has to offer.

Back in the Iraqi capital, adrenalin still pumping, he pressed the button to play to London his first-hand account of a day that changed the world. An expectant newsroom came to a standstill. They saw nothing. They never did. The tape had broken. So much for technology. A tale to remember this Christmas as you curse your video for failing to record that favourite film.

The author is political editor of ITV News

nick.robinson@thetimes.co.uk

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