the brilliantly leaping gazelle

So the news today is that the EU has announced an extension of the first extension which takes us up to the 31st January.  Whoopie-fucking-do! If Boris Johnson was just a regular Joe, chancing his arm with sneaking in another building extension under the noses of the planning department and applied retrospectively, he’d have to tear it down and possibly be prosecuted.

But our unloveable rogue isn’t an ordinary Joe, he’s the Prime Minister and this extension of an extension paves the way for a general election. Apparently. Don’t ask me how exactly, but somehow this becomes a very real possibility. Except, of course for one tiny detail, that might unravel the whole enterprise – or underline how much of a hostage to fortune it is.

It isn’t the by now well rehearsed arguments that places that would normally be used to count the votes – civic centres, sports halls – and other places essential to a smooth running of a general election, are already booked for Christmas events. Whilst financially challenged councils might at a pinch be able to reimburse to hire charges, would they be able to stump up the loss of earnings that a Winter Fayre might generate. Oh, savour if you will, the delicious irony of a Conservative PM being unable to call a general election because of market forces! But does Boris want to be like Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham in ‘Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves and cancel? Christmas’ Of course not!

No, for me the problem is the pesky ‘Fixed Term Parliament Act’ which requires that MP’s will have to pass a bill allowing it to happen. Given that many MP’s face the very real prospect of losing their jobs, are they really going to vote for it? Just a thought.