Political column – January 4

Sound advice in these unpredictable times. Mind you, he also said: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

The UK comes to a B-shaped fork in the road on January 31 and, following the general election result, will now definitely be taking it.

And as for a 2020 vision, there have been so many predictions in recent years, mostly of the dire and gloomy sort, that it is going to be interesting to see which ones are proven correct.

Remember, we face the loss of 700,000 jobs. The forecast about all flights being grounded when we leave the EU seems to have fallen out of fashion, but in these days of climate change emergency there must surely be some who would welcome such a decisive act to reduce emissions.

Perhaps the most difficult predictions to make are of nothing happening of consequence of all. After three years of hysteria in the House of Commons there is the prospect of having something like political business as usual for the first time since the days of the last time there was a majority government, which is so long ago now you might not remember it.

In the wake of the voters’ cull in December, which politicians shall we miss? The list isn’t exactly long.

For largely sentimental reasons if nothing else, Dennis Skinner, maybe, alias the Beast of Bolsover. He would have been Father of the House – that is, the longest continuously serving MP – had he been re-elected. Instead, he was carried away in the blue wash.

A “character,” but not an intolerable one, he never achieved high office, nor did he aspire to.

Jo Swinson was not to many people’s taste but she was a groundbreaker for the Lib Dems and gave the party both a woman leader and a USP, albeit one that did not actually sell.

It’s amazing to think now that Chuka Umunna looked at one point a good bet to be the next leader of the Labour Party, a potential Jack Kennedy figure for the 21st century.

He bottled out of that contest and a political career which seemed to hold so much promise has fizzled out into one of abject failure.

Ah, Labour. Defeat has brought out an unexpected smallness in Jeremy Corbyn. Back in 1983, Michael Foot took things on the chin. In contrast, sour-faced Corbyn has been a bad loser.

The characteristic of his leadership is that nothing is to do with him, his famous "present-but-not-involved" syndrome.

And so it is with Labour’s defeat. To win hearts and minds you have to do more than identify despair, you have to offer joy. Jezza was unable to offer voters the prospect of a joyful premiership.

As 2020 unfolds, Labour has the hardest job of any of the parties. It has to define itself and unless and until it can do that, it is politically up the creek without a paddle.

What it needs is a bloody but decisive and quick civil war. The despised Tony Blair won the war in his time. Jeremy Corbyn won the support he needed but didn’t like wars and wanted to have policies which would satisfy all wings of the party.

It’s a strategy that can work for a time but when the pressure is on is apt to fall apart.

The year 2020 sees a fundamental change of landscape. The Stop Brexit movement becomes obsolete on January 31. Will any opposition party – apart from the SNP – be brave enough to promote a “Rejoin the EU” agenda?

There will be arguments in Parliament about Brexit, but my guess is that psychologically the country at large has already moved on.

It now falls to the politicians to show that they can catch up.

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A straightforward solution to the VAR controversy would be an acceptance that human officials make mistakes, and a tolerance of them.

This would mean a return to the days when, if the referee was lucky their parentage would be called into question from the stands in virtually every game, and if they were less lucky, relatively speaking, alleged personal habits would be invoked as well.

All part of the fun.

During my lifetime I have only played a part in officiating in two football matches, the first when I was about 14 and was pressed into action to run the line in a schools match. After a particularly strong challenge, one of the players expressed doubts about the acuity of my eyesight in forcible terms. Was I supposed to do something then?

The other occasion was more recently when I was asked to run the line at a junior game. I had some knowledge of the offside rule but was rather hazy about the implementation. I think the crunch point was when I gave a 10-year-old offside at a throw in. Apparently you cannot be offside at a throw-in.

It must be one of the rare occasions in the history of the beautiful game in which one of the officials was substituted at half time.