If science is supposed to rally facts into theories as the foundations for predictions, then social and political scientists could be thought to have some of the most bewilderingly impossible jobs on the planet.

Foresight is notoriously tricky – and no one could have anticipated the extraordinary events of 2022 – but there are perhaps a few things we can already expect. So, what, we may ask, might 2023 hold in store for society and politics in the UK?

Everyone’s of course looking forward to the new Indiana Jones and Mission Impossible movies (both partially filmed in the UK) and Ncuti Gatwa’s debut on Disney-BBC as Doctor Who. Rather heavier entertainment is awaited in the forthcoming releases of blockbuster British directors Christopher Nolan and Ridley Scott’s takes on the lives of Robert Oppenheimer and Napoleon Bonaparte.

Netflix is scheduled to deliver the sixth and final season of The Crown later in 2023. Sadly, they aren’t planning to bring the story up to date by portraying the devastating effects upon the House of Windsor wreaked by such streamed series as the Harry and Meghan show and The Crown itself. That degree of self-reference would of course have become rather too confusing in a terribly postmodernist kind of a way.

Meanwhile, we can be pretty sure that the famously foul-mouthed screen star Miriam Margolyes won’t be invited back onto the BBC’s flagship morning news programme anytime soon, after her headline-grabbing deployment of typically blunt language last autumn to illustrate her view of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt live on air – although we might observe in her defence that her expletive wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what that same show’s own presenters had accidentally called him in both 2010 and 2018.

We also know that, dominating our media on the first Saturday in May, the coronation of King Charles III will be staged in the historical splendour of London’s Westminster Abbey and watched across the world by enthusiasts and critics alike. This ceremony, the first for nearly seventy years, promises the most extraordinary display of pomp and pageantry, as well as an additional day of national holiday for most of the monarch’s subjects in the UK. 

In May 1953, a few days before his mother’s coronation, a New Zealander had become the first person confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. It would seem similarly fitting to many in his kingdom if, a few months after the new king’s coronation, England's team were to repeat their 2022 Euros triumph by winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup in the Antipodes. It would certainly provide a much-needed feel-good boost for the British economy.

The downturn in productivity resulting from the national holiday which had been granted to mark the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II last year had inadvertently helped to precipitate the nation towards recession. Given the current state of the British economy, there will be those who feel uncomfortable at the direct expense and indirect cost of this year’s once-in-a-lifetime royal event – though it must be conceded that the coronation may well prove a stimulus to spending even in these difficult times.

We may also assume that the Palace will elect to avoid excessive shows of extravagance at the height of the country’s cost-of-living crisis.

This year, all eyes will be on the possibility of growth in gross domestic product, the rate of inflation and interest rates, the stability of the financial markets, the price of fuel, and the strength of the pound – not least those of the Prime Minister, whose own electoral fate will depend on the direction taken by these crucial indicators.

The likelihood of continuing industrial action taken by key workers in transport, healthcare, education and emergency services will no doubt also weigh heavily on Mr. Sunak’s mind.

In his New Year’s message to the nation, Rishi Sunak said he would not "pretend that all our problems will go away" in 2023. He must however be very aware that things will have to get significantly better if he is to stand any chance of staying in power past 2024.

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At the same time, the Labour Party should spend much of 2023 in the process of gearing up for an election expected towards the end of next year. The party will in particular be trying its hardest to look like a government in waiting, and to do so its leader, while appearing suitably solemn and statesmanlike, will also need to be more proactive in taking policy initiatives.

He has recently signalled his desire for major constitutional reform and for the establishment of a publicly owned green energy production company. He would be well advised to become much clearer and more committed to the details of such plans during 2023.

In his own New Year’s message, Sir Keir Starmer said that Labour would use the next twelve months to "set out the case for change." But that much is obvious enough. What the electorate wants to hear is how his party actually intends to make that essential difference.

In the days and weeks immediately ahead, many ordinary British people will be dreading the return of the freezing weather which hit the UK before Christmas. Most will be praying for lower food prices and energy bills, and an end to the war in Europe. Those most in need will be desperate for solutions to the country’s continuing crises in health and social care. 

Just last week, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine warned that its services were in a "complete state of crisis" and that there was "no doubt" that patients’ lives were at risk, while the Archbishop of Canterbury called on the government to fix the country’s "broken" system for the provision of social care. It will be interesting to see if the outspoken new king will manage to get through the year without speaking out on such subjects close to his heart as social justice and the environment.

Pretty much everyone will be looking for a form of national leadership that can start to get us out of this unholy mess, restore trust in the institutions and processes of democracy, and act decisively and effectively to reverse the relentless legacies of Brexit and the foolhardy fiscal experiment that sent the British economy into meltdown in Autumn 2022. 

Liz Truss may have put her foot down hard on the gas (a commodity in perilously short supply) to accelerate the economic car crash that hastened her departure from Downing Street, but her blond buffoon of a predecessor had been napping at the wheel for long enough to make that catastrophe almost inevitable. As Boris Johnson’s longest-serving Chancellor, Rishi Sunak must also shoulder his portion of the blame for the nation’s acute financial woes. His immediate political prospects, and his party’s long-term fortunes, now depend on his ability to reverse this hopeless trajectory.

Meanwhile, the nationalist administration in Edinburgh seems set to escalate its campaign to force a referendum on Scottish independence, spurred on by public outrage at Britain’s political and economic chaos. If 2023 ends up looking anything like 2022, then the fate of the United Kingdom itself may well hang in the balance. 

Even the combined powers of Indiana Jones, Ethan Hunt and Doctor Who may not be enough to get us out of this. Napoleon and Oppenheimer might offer their own particular solutions, but, desperate though things might appear, we’re probably not quite ready for a French takeover or for the nuclear option. 

Miriam Margolyes would doubtless have something pertinent to say about the state of the nation today, but it almost certainly couldn’t be broadcast.

In fact, the destiny of the UK is of course,  for the most part, out of our hands. We will continue to be subject to the uncertain exigencies and whims of greater superpowers. Whatever happens in Britain this year, the country will be buffeted by the tides of global history, by the winds of war, economic volatility, and climate change, even as the spectres of vicious new strains of pandemic still loom large.

The reality of its impotence in the face of this maelstrom is perhaps the toughest truth for any nation to accept, yet this brutal realisation may sometimes prove sufficient to urge a nation towards greatness again – greatness not as a military giant but as a force for positive cultural influence, scientific and environmental progress, moral probity, and international reconciliation and understanding. 

The UK is at a low point in its political and economic history. It’s now up to us to demand something different, perhaps even to demand the impossible, in an unstinting effort to try to turn things around. If things really can’t get any worse, then we might be forgiven for hoping that, from here, the only way is up.

We’ve languished too long in cycles of pessimism and despair. We’ve grown inured to negativity in our news. It’s twenty-six months since the Oxford English Dictionary chose ‘doomscrolling’ as one of its words of the year. Last November, Collins Dictionaries named ‘permacrisis’ as their top word for 2022. We’ve evidently got stuck in a bit of a rut. Perhaps it’s time we began to move beyond all that.