Review of the Year 2009: The Cartoonist's Eye

(Dave Brown)

1. Kim Jong Il

26 May

'Kim Jong Il caused a stink when he tested a nuclear bomb, to the general dismay of world leaders. They happened to be in the nuclear club but the fact it was Kim made his test completely unacceptable. The challenge was to paint something invisible – the lurid artificial light of the lift is the visual equivalent of a bad smell. Subtler than clouds of smoke.'

2. Abbey Road

14 September

'When The Beatles' back catalogue was released, Brown suggested we were on the road to recovery – but not how long it would be or whether we were going in the right direction. In the Abbey Road cover Paul is barefoot, which led to bizarre rumours he was dead. So Gordon fitted that role, while Cameron comes for him in the white VW Beetle.'

3. Cameron helicopter

15 July

'I felt there were a lot of very serious questions and important discussions to be had about troop equipment shortages and the lack of helicopters but Cameron was almost determined to hitch a ride on the issue. He'd found a cause to beat Gordon with and so we got Cameron the opportunist – grandstanding and attempting to claim the moral high ground.'

4. Jacqui boobs again

30 March

'Before the duck house became the motif of the expenses scandal, Jacqui Smith was its poster girl, after she claimed for porn her husband had watched. I wondered what he might be watching and what was more offensive – the porn or the shameless money-grabbing. It was the latest gaffe (so 'boobs again') before she disappeared down history's plughole.'

5. Brown shipwreck

30 June

'A lot of the cartoons on the credit crunch and the recession seem to involve shipwrecks and images of disasters at sea. I guess it comes from the term "bailout". Here I wanted to show Gordon's repeated fightbacks and relaunches as, in the face of continued disasters, the blindly optimistic Prime Minister keeps trying to stay afloat.'

6. Lumley's kukri

22 May

'Joanna Lumley went to Downing Street to fight for the rights of Gurkhas to settle in Britain and came out of a meeting with Gordon Brown having won everything after he apparently rolled over and surrendered. Someone later asked me what were "those things" on the kukri Lumley is holding. I told her I couldn't possibly comment.'