I am writing this column on what is technically the first day of summer. Luckily, the sun is shining as I do so - hereby suggesting that the advent of summer is not a wholly ironic event this year.

But this summer will not, for those of us concerned with the fate of our nation, be dominated by buckets and spades and beaches – much though I hope that the tourists will flock to the beautiful and under sung beaches of West Dorset in 2019.

The fact is that, as everyone knows, a new government is likely to be formed before the holiday season begins in earnest – and that new government will have to spend its summer wrestling with the very same problems that have proved so challenging for the current administration.

There will be a new Prime Minister at the helm, and a new (or at least somewhat changed) group of people round the Cabinet table. But the facts will remain the same. A divided nation, a divided parliament, a European Union determined to protect the boundaries of its single market, a strong movement towards independence in Scotland, the likelihood of an all-Ireland ‘border poll’ if the UK leaves the EU without a Withdrawal Agreement, and a very considerable collection of risks for British businesses and expatriate Britons in the event of a no-deal Brexit – none of these facts will change just because the government has changed.

We shall have to see whether - in some way that I cannot currently imagine (but for which I earnestly hope) - the new regime will be able to use its first 10 weeks in office to find a solution to this rubik’s cube that has so manifestly and so repeatedly evaded the present government.

One thing about which we can be sure, is that success in this arduous endeavour will require compromise – a commodity that has been in signally short supply so far.

For some reason that I have never managed to understand, many of those who voted on either side of the referendum have proved remarkably immune to suggestions of compromise. I have received large numbers of communications from undoubtedly well-meaning people who voted to remain and who have urged me to advance the cause of remaining, as if there had not been a popular vote, in the majority, to leave. And I have received at least as many communications from equally well-meaning people who voted to leave, and who have asserted that the narrow majority in favour of leaving constitutes a clear mandate to leave without a deal. Neither of these groups, and neither of the groups within parliament representing these views has yet been willing to compromise.

I hope – though I cannot say I expect – that the summer sunshine may somehow engender on both sides a softening of the hard edges and a new willingness to achieve some compromise.