A serious contender for villain of the year has to be Tim Yeo. The conflicted chairman of the Energy and Climate Change select committee has time and time again flown the green flag this year, insisting that it is mere coincidence he makes over £100,000-a-year from his own renewable energy investments. Just because a conflict of interest is declared, it is still a conflict of interest…

Guido took particular interest in Tim Yeo’s taxi trouble over the summer. There was a distinctly whiffy smell lingering around Eco City Vehicles, an environmentally-friendly taxi company chaired by Yeo, and their wheeler deal to conveniently introduce an age limit for London’s taxis. The job earned Yeo some £440-an-hour, but when Number 10 started sniffing around he quickly resigned on the quiet. Guilty conscience?

And it didn’t end there. Perhaps Yeo’s most shameless moment of the year was when he used his position to lobby the government for more flights to China, the very same day that his company TMO Renewables signed a multi-million pound deal in – you guessed it – China. He still rakes tens of thousands from his positions at three renewable energy companies, despite remaining as chairman of the select committee that helps govern them. Don’t Yeo forget it…