This is The Guardian.

Politics Weekly UK is taking a break for Christmas and the New Year.

We'll be back soon enough.

But in the meantime, if you're looking for a few things to keep you entertained,

I'm going to talk about a few of my favourite books, albums and TV shows from the last year.

I'm John Harris and you're listening to Politics with the UK for the Guardian.

Beyond Westminster and increasingly in the inner circles of politics, one of this year's

big themes was all about

nature, our threatened environment and issues about land and property that were once overlooked,

but are now being loudly talked about. Some of this is about how things moved from the culture

into political debate. The popularity of walking and hiking, for example, rose during the pandemic and then put a new kind of environmentalism on the agenda.

The dire state of our rivers and the tireless campaigning of Fergal Sharkey has been every bit as important.

Once, he was the singer with the Northern Irish punk-ish band The Undertones, but last time I saw him during the election campaign,

he was standing on the end of a pier in Redcar

talking about discharges of sewage.

Or, as he puts it,

Poo!

I've been fortunate in my life,

a little while ago, I will admit,

to stand on another wooden platform called the stage

and utter those immortal words, good night, Wembley!

Then I get to stand in the end of salt beer, here talking about food.

...