It's at this time of the year we can all pause, take stock of the previous 12 months and look forward to the sunlit uplands that are bound to be coming our way in 2019.

Or maybe not.

In reality, what an omnishambles this year has turned into, as Malcolm Tucker from the TV show The Thick of It may have said.

Remember those balmy, heady days of summer when the England team overachieved in the World Cup finals?

The sun shone every day, the beer flowed like there was no tomorrow, waistcoats became fashionable again and at least in England there was a sense of unity and togetherness.

But those days are long gone.

They are just a distant memory replaced by dark, wintery nights in a country that seems to be intent on tearing itself apart and making itself a global laughing stock in equal measure.

I am, of course, talking about Brexit, that most toxic and divisive of subjects.

For what it's worth, I voted remain along with 16,141,240 others.

And there's the problem. You can't have a binary yes-no, in-out solution to such a multi-faceted problem without seriously upsetting a massive number of people.

Like the grumpy old man I am, I have found myself hurling abuse at the television every time Theresa May says she's getting on with delivering the Brexit the people of Britain want and voted for.

No Theresa, you're getting on with delivering the Brexit that 17,410,742 people voted for in 2016 after being told a pack of lies, half-truths and uninformed guesses.

Well, I say she's getting on with it. That appears to be far from the actuality of what's happening.

The reality is a huge chunk of the population is going to be disappointed and disillusioned whatever the final outcome – Remainers if we have a hard Brexit and Brexiters if we have a soft or no Brexit.

But what her and her government have managed to do is really remarkable. She has managed to disillusion and disappoint all factions, not just in the country but it would appear in her own government and cabinet.

That's a trick seldom seen in the history of parliamentary democracy.

It really does seem like Mrs May only has one tactic and that is to do nothing at all until we are right up to the final deadline, postponing the so-called meaningful vote until late January, which political commentators seem to think will heighten the risk of us falling over the Brexit cliff edge.

It sort of smacks of the political equivalent of closing your eyes, sticking your fingers in your ears and humming tunelessly in the hope it will all go away of its own accord.

Under normal circumstances, the civil war tearing the Tories apart should be an open goal for the opposition.

But it isn't.

I've been around a long time and I've seen governments come and go but I don't think I've ever seen an opposition in such disarray with Labour less popular and Jeremy Corbyn’s personal ratings even more negative than those of the prime minister.

Andrew Rawnsley writing in the Guardian summed it up: "Labour’s own version of fantasy Brexit has been to pretend that it could negotiate a deal that gave Britain all the benefits of EU membership from the outside.

"The voters aren’t buying this bogus prospectus.

"Despite it all, the public trusts Mr Corbyn with Brexit even less than it trusts Mrs May.

"The endless ducking and diving about when they might call a no-confidence vote against the government makes Labour look like opportunists desperately hoping to luck into office on the back of Brexit turmoil rather than a party with the national interest at heart."

Makes you proud to be British, doesn't it?

As French diplomat and philosopher Joseph de Maistre said: "Every nation gets the government it deserves."

I wonder just what it was we did wrong to deserve this lot.

And a happy New Year to you all.