It is with a heavy heart (well, not too heavy) that this column feels obliged to observe that not all of our political parties will have a happy Christmas.
This is indeed sad news, in view of the wonderful efforts they make to bring pleasure, delight and enjoyment into our daily lives. (Yes, I made that bit up, but apparently it is the sort of thing you are expected to say at Christmas.)
So what, you ask, is likely to spoil the festive spirit for so many parties as they watch the Queen's Christmas speech? The answer is that they are all rather uncertain about their futures.
Most uncertain of all are Britain's three Tory tribes: the Eurosceptics headed by Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sammy Wilson (one speaks a dead language and the other speaks Latin); those who will settle for any deal, led by Amber Rudd, and Mrs May's faction, which currently includes her, Mr May and Larry, the Downing Street cat - although Larry might defect any day soon.
Mrs May has now led Britain to a point where, when she retires, she will presumably become Lady May, for services to uncertainty.
If there are three Conservative parties, there are at least four Labour parties and Jeremy Corbyn does not appear to belong to any of them. The more you listen to Mr Corbyn, the less you understand. His speeches are a form of political chloroform, which drain you of everything you previously knew. The good news for Labour, however, is that Mr Corbyn is too vague to generate uncertainty.
Things are no better on this side of the Irish Sea. If the parties here were to look out on the Feast of Stephen and see a poor man gathering winter fuel, Sinn Féin would observe, "That man needs a border poll". The DUP (yes, you've guessed it) would offer him a grant to gather wood-burning pellets and Leo Varadkar would rush to meet the man, have his photograph taken with him and then go back into the house.
(Yes, I left out the SDLP, but that is because I would have had to explain the difference between the Fianna Fáil-SDLP and the SDLP-SDLP and that might offend both SDLPs.)
Although ahead in the opinion polls, Leo Varadkar's future is most uncertain. Rather than negotiate an Irish solution with the unionists in the early stages of Brexit, Leo threw in his lot with the Germans, a move he might come to regret. (They are the same Germans who so recently destroyed the Irish economy by insisting that unsecured loans should be repaid to their bankers.) Oddly, Leo then supported the eviction of a Roscommon farming family because they had not repaid their loans to KCB bank.
There's another benefit of EU membership - previously only Irish banks could authorise evictions, but now Belgian banks have the right to do it too. (Would that be one of those rights which SF claim they are defending by supporting EU membership?)
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin has gone all historical, citing Constance Markievicz as an excuse for abstention from Westminster, while conveniently ignoring that the same Constance helped to found Fianna Fáil. But maybe they are following the same historical path? (Irish politics exam, Question 1: Discuss the view that Sinn Féin is just Fianna Fáil with attitude.)
Sinn Féin's uncertainty stems from the party's being marooned, north and south. Having left Stormont to fight an election in Dublin, the party now finds that there will be no poll before the spring of 2020, because Fianna Fáil has agreed to support Fine Gael until then "in the national interest".
(Like patriotism, you cannot argue against "the national interest", even though no one is sure what it means. Seeking to define it is not allowed, because that would be against the national interest.) This has allowed Leo to recommence attacking Sinn Féin, which might have been his coalition partners by now.
Mary Lou seems a bit confused by it all, a problem she shares with Arlene Foster, who is not an MP and thus has become a sort of abstentionist leader of the now exclusively Westminster-based DUP. Until both parties abstain from sectarianism, all our futures will be unsure.
You see, in this country, political uncertainty is for life and not just for Christmas.
