As everyone else is reviewing the year, I thought I would look back on a few political highlights.

The funniest moment of the year has to be Buckinghamshire County Council's ridiculous decision to re-design their Swan logo after a survey suggested the chains around the animal's neck were cruel. The council spent £30,000 on work on the new logo (a swan wearing just a coronet) and branding. However, in the face of the public outrage members backtracked and ditched the new design. I can't think of a bigger waste of taxpayers' money this year.

The most disappointing moment was the decision to keep Positive Parking in the Wycombe district. When are the people in charge going to realise that the scheme is just not working and is driving trade away?

Former county council boss Mark Greenburgh set up a comprehensive review of the scheme and even admitted it needed some changes, but nothing happened. And to top it all, Cllr Bill Chapple, deputy leader of the county council, came up with the annoying statement that there would be "long term torture for Wycombe" if positive parking was scrapped. Positive parking is nothing but a torture Bill, especially for the businesses that have gone bust as a result of it.

There is only one winner for the biggest surprise of the year. It goes to the look on the faces of Wycombe district council housing bosses when their tenants voted no to transferring their homes out of council control. My spy at the count said they looked absolutely dumbfounded and found it extremely hard to digest the news at first. They had seemed so confident of getting a yes vote. A few weeks before the result, the council carried out a survey which seemed to suggest tenants were going to support the plan but it all went horribly wrong in August, much to the delight of anti-housing transfer pressure group, Hands Off Our Homes.

The most controversial moment has to be the decision to award county councillors big salaries with the change to cabinet government. The news came out at the same time as the council announced there could be up to £3 million of social services cut next year. As our editorial said at the time it was "a bitter bill to swallow." Thankfully the pressure on social services has eased a little after the Government decided to give more money to the council. It remains to be seen whether senior members are worth salaries in the £30,000 region.

One of the saddest moments was the death of county councillor John Huddart. He will be missed by many people in the community.

Of course, there are many other things I have missed out including the current mess over the Western sector development in High Wycombe, but I'm sure I'll get my chance next year.

After my column last week lambasting the spin doctors at Wycombe District Council, I was a little worried about how they would react to a visit from my editor for a 'friendly' get together. I heard they took my comments on the chin and were very professional, which is a great credit to everyone who works there.