A. J. P. Taylor contended that: “History gets thicker as it approaches recent times.” He also observed that most of the events that are declared “historic” in their time end up in a “waiting room”, dependent on other developments before their significance can be assessed. In that spirit, therefore, 2005 should not be graded as if a wine whose virtue and vice can be reliably measured against others. Most of what seemed so astonishing or intense at the moment of its happening will be regarded rather more dispassionately within the decade, never mind a more extended time frame. History might look as if it is a set of full stops. In reality, it is but a collection of commas.

What then might be regarded as lasting developments of 2005? Natural disasters seized the headlines, but the Asian tsunami properly belongs to the vault marked 2004, Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans but luckily it did not involve the scale of death widely cited at the time, and the Pakistani earthquake, as awful as it undoubtedly was, is, alas, not in a league of its own for a region that has suffered astounding loss of life in cyclones, among other tragedies. The violence brought by tide or wind or the splintering of the Earth serve to remind us of our enduring fragility despite the apparent genius of human invention. It is not, though, unique.

Nor have matters at home, despite the understandable spotlight shone on them, necessarily forced their way to the front of Taylor’s waiting room. A general election came and went but in so doing largely passed the electorate by and produced a result — a third Labour term in office — that was anti-cipated from the moment of the second occasion that Tony Blair secured Downing Street. His parliamentary majority may have been at the lower end of expectations but was not wildly off the scale that the pundits had long set out. The elevation of David Cameron to the Conservative Party leadership, while very interesting, is for now definitely “work in progress”.

If any single event of 2005 proves to be one that history awards prominence, it will not be the hustings but inspections conducted in murky circumstances in the country around the Northern Ireland border that may warrant that accolade. If it does transpire that the IRA statement in July to the effect that its paramilitary struggle was terminated followed by the verification in late September that a vast arsenal had been placed “beyond use”, a peaceful resolution to what can be deemed Western Europe’s last civil war is not inconceivable. Compared with this, such sensations as David Blunkett’s second resignation from the Cabinet in a year appear inconsequential.

The other moment which will properly claim attention did not involve, in any positive sense, politics at all. The London bombings of July 7, followed by their failed sequel a fortnight later, illustrated that the threat from Islamist terrorism was not one which came about through foreign agents directed by a sinister figure located in a distant cave. It was instead engineered at home and by those brought up as thoroughly British. In an odd parallel to the IRA’s decision to “ dump arms”, the meaning of the willingness of a set of home-grown fanatics to serve as human bombs is today a subject of speculation. It is speculation that Britain did not wish to entertain.

If 2005 will not excessively trouble those to whom it falls to chronicle British history, what of the wider world? There are many candidates for special acclaim but few if any are irrefutable contenders for posterity. Perhaps the strongest is the death of Pope John Paul II, yet that is only because his life and, in truth, the first 15 years or so of his papacy were so utterly extraordinary. He is one of very few figures for whom the well-worn phrase “we shall not see his like again ” is not likely to be exposed as glib and empty. The Roman Catholic Church had seen nothing like him for centuries and will be fortunate to find such a charismatic man at such a ripe time again soon.

Most of the rest has to be put down as possibilities rather than certainties. There are two strands that perhaps are worth more attention than others.

The first concerns the destiny of the European Union. The defeat of the embryonic constitution at the hands of the voters of France and the Netherlands might — like similar popular revolts on the Maastricht treaty in Denmark or the euro in Sweden — eventually prove to be less important than it seemed at the hour when the ballots were counted. That is not, though, how it seems this time. There is surely some chance that history will determine that 2005 was the occasion when Europe ’s future was finally delegated in part to those who should properly control it — European citizens.

Democracy has also manifested itself in the Middle East in a fashion that few would have expected as short a time ago as September 10, 2001. The year began with provisional elections in Iraq and shortly afterwards Mahmoud Abbas was elected to serve as the President of the Palestinian Authority. His arrival created the political space for Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, to extricate his country from its lengthy embroilment in the Gaza Strip. Partially, and under duress, Syria felt obliged to transfer its troops out of Lebanon. Iraqis went to the polls again to approve a sweeping new constitution and once more this month to elect a proper parliament.

All of these are straws in the wind. They come with the assumption that history is more than politics which has had enough time to settle. Taylor, a supremely sceptical individual about politics and politicians, would not rush to such a rather soulless conclusion.

Despite that, in his lifetime he could hardly resist the temptation to ponder in lectures and print on what he had witnessed that would have staying power. He also knew that time allows those ideas to be revisited and re-ordered. As 1066 and All That so correctly asserts: “History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember.”