It has been the custom of this column to start each new year with a series of negative predictions: a list of things that might have been expected to occur over the following twelve months but which I believed would not, in fact, come to pass. But given the bizarrely startling events of the past year, all bets are off. In order to avoid mortifying error, I would have to confine my forecast of Things That Will Not Happen to an invasion by extra-terrestrials. On second thought, maybe not even that.

So if you will forgive the deviation from custom, there will be a slight modification. What follows are my considered thoughts on what unlikely outcomes the next twelve months will possibly produce. Maybe.

First, every stage of the coming Brexit negotiations will look as if it is collapsing into chaos and recrimination – until five minutes to midnight when, in an incomprehensible (because largely unexplained) miraculous transmutation it will be resolved. Everybody engaged in the process will instantly switch from reciprocal insults and bloodcurdling threats to universal approbation and proclamations of mutual regard. This pattern will be repeated at least half a dozen times, always with the same formula – because economic reality must prevail over political vanity – but the ending will always come as a “surprise” to most of the media. On the first few occasions, the happy denouement will create euphoric relief in the country at large. Then everybody will get the hang of it and become bored.