I thought I would take a quick opportunity, amongst the obligatory last-minute panic stations, to wish everyone who reads this blog a Happy Christmas.

What a year it has been, with the nation pretty much broken, apart from a brief few weeks when the England football team, a modern looking breath of fresh air, performed better than expected but came up just short of making an unprecedented World Cup Final.

Sadly, Brexit will continue to divide us because there is so much at stake and those of you who dismiss the theories of historians and politicians of many colours, who fear a dystopian and authoritarian future, you should take heed, as these things can happen, and very quickly.

Hopefully, common sense will prevail, and all the ham headed right wing bullies who shout a lot just to cover up their insecure cowardice, will be put back in their place and we can all get back on the rocky path to righteousness, building relations and looking for a world peace rather than war.

I am no royalist, but I thought I would leave you with a segment of the Queen’s speech from 1972 as I think something that can be learned from it.

‘I am speaking today to all the peoples of the Commonwealth. In this unique organisation, we are fortunate in having endless opportunities for co-operation.

Through its informal structure we have created a web of relationships between peoples of many races and creeds and now between a great number of sovereign independent states.

I have visited almost all of the 32 independent Commonwealth countries, and we are looking forward to going back to Canada and Australia next year. I know from this personal experience how much the Commonwealth is valued by its members.

Britain is about to join her neighbours in the European Community and you may well ask how this will affect the Commonwealth.

The new links with Europe will not replace those with the Commonwealth. They cannot alter our historical and personal attachments with kinsmen and friends overseas. Old friends will not be lost; Britain will take her Commonwealth links into Europe with her.

Britain and these other European countries see in the Community a new opportunity for the future. They believe that the things they have in common are more important than the things which divide them, and that if they work together not only they, but the whole world will benefit.

We are trying to create a wider family of Nations and it is particularly at Christmas that this family should feel closest together.’

Have a good Christmas!