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So come on then, what do we know in the dying days of 2009 that we didn't know when it arrived?

Let's think ... and kick off with Nick Bourne. We now know he's in charge of the Welsh Conservatives. He was leader this time last year but by no stretch of anyone's imagination was he in charge. The briefing against him was vitriolic, public and came pretty much exclusively from within his own party. He 'thought up party policy on coastal walks in West Wales' with his closest mates and laid it before the group on his return as a fait accompli. Listen to ideas put forward by others? Pah, certainly not. Judgement? Just consider the iPod. Cue lots of eye rolling and head shaking. He'd brought the party a long way but oh, it was time to go.

How did he survive?

Because so many Conservative AMs thought they deserved a crack at the leadership whip. Too many. Each named the other as a possible stalking horse and no-one made a move. Is there a law that says the more ambitious would-be candidates there are, the safer the leader? There must be. It should, perhaps, be renamed Bourne's Law.

What else?

We know that at the very end of the year, the UK is still in recession.

We know that Wales has come out worse from the past 12 months than just about any other part of the UK. We know that as far as earnings go, wealth creation, the state of the manufacturing sector, you name it, Wales is doing badly at it. 'Gaps' between England and Wales that have been in the headlines since you or I can remember are growing, not closing.

We know that PROact and REact - schemes to shield Welsh companies - have been praised and aped but we don't yet know to what extent they've inured Welsh workers from the worst of the recession . We do know that by the end of the year, tens of thousands of Welsh workers have lost their jobs and tens of thousands have given up on finding one. We do know that Wales is the poorest part of the UK.

We know that finding out how the expenses system has been used to the hilt by many and abused by some MPs has changed the voting public's attitude to politicians and political institutions for a very long time. The way the story was told, the appetite for it amongst a public who were somehow incredulous and at the very same time convinced they'd known all along that 'they' were all in it for the money, has left its mark on politicians. Let's be clear though: it's left even more of a mark on the people they represent.

What we don't know is what effect it'll have on who might want to stand come 2010, or on one or two who had planned to stand in 2010 and in 2011.

We know that Labour voters stayed at home on June 4th. Labour activists refused to go out shoving leaflets through doors. What they didn't do is worth knowing too. They didn't simply switch and vote for another party. Some went here, some went there but mostly they went anywhere but the polling station.

We know UKIP are electable in Wales and that Conservative supporters came out and voted. We know Plaid got their vote out in those seats they could realistically win in 2010. But elsewhere? If they'd hoped disillusioned Labour voters would gift their vote to Plaid, they were sorely disappointed. We know too that having a new leader didn't raise the Lib Dems from the drop-dead unconvincing fifth spot.

We know that Rhodri Morgan meant it when he said he was planning to stand down 'on or around his birthday.' His own party weren't sure he meant it. Labour insiders in Westminster certainly weren't sure he meant it. Journalists thought he probably did himself but weren't sure the party would let him.

We know too that a referendum is more likely than it was at the beginning of 2009. We know that because the long-time alibi of the Assembly Government, the All Wales Convention, has published its report. It's turned round and left the politicians to make up their own minds in much the same way as my parents used to leave me to make up mine on the important stuff - having made it absolutely clear which was the right way to go.

The referendum, if won, would untie some of the strings that bind the Assembly to Westminster - constitutional strings that we know for sure get knotted every now and then, strings that the Convention say tend to strangle progress. We know they believe there is a better way that would get Wales a better deal.

What neither they, nor anyone else know, is whether the people of Wales have given much thought, let alone started to form an idea, of which way they would vote. How would they know? At the end of 2009, those who want a 'yes' vote - and change the status quo - know one thing above all else: if they intend to hold a referendum and win it, then they must make the running, make the argument and make the country listen.

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