Comment & Analysis (Intergalactic) | Barnaby Whitlow, with the Constitutional Desk

Before the constitutional crisis can begin, a formality: the Count is not yet on the ballot. Electoral law requires ten registered Clacton voters to nominate him. The campaign reports a deluge of volunteers, though the desk notes the candidate cannot make up any shortfall himself. He does not have hands, and would in any case be his own eleventh signature.

Assuming the ten names arrive, and Ipsos suggests they will be oversubscribed, the desk has prepared the following briefing for the House authorities, who we understand have not.

The armour question

The candidate has already described the Commons dress code as "binnist", and here the desk must report a genuine constitutional discovery. A statute of 1313, still in force, forbids Members from entering Parliament wearing armour. In seven centuries the statute has never been tested against a receptacle. The question of whether a bin worn on the head constitutes armour, or whether a Member who is substantially bin is merely dressed as himself, will fall in the first instance to the Speaker, and the desk does not envy him.

The oath

No Member may sit or vote before swearing allegiance to the Crown. Precedent exists for elected members who decline the oath: they do not take their seats. The Count's position is different. He is willing to swear. The open question is the Bible, which is customarily held. See above, regarding hands. The desk understands an affirmation may be made instead, and that the Clerk of the House has begun drinking.

Seating

The Commons benches are raked and upholstered, and Members are expected to sit. The Count does not bend. The desk has reviewed the standing orders and confirms, to its delight, that they are called standing orders. He will be fine.

The maiden speech

Convention requires a new Member's first speech to pay generous tribute to their predecessor in the seat. The Count has confirmed he will comply, and that the tribute is being costed. Early drafts are understood to run to one sentence and to have passed both the fact-checking desk and the legal desk without amendment, a first for any statement about the Member for Clacton.

The register of interests

Within one month of election, every new Member must register their financial interests. The desk has previously inspected the Count's register and found it to close. He would become the first Member in parliamentary history able to comply by physical demonstration, on the floor of the House, in under four seconds. The desk has timed it.

Prime Minister's Questions

Hansard, asked how it would record the Member, is understood to have settled on "the Count", which the desk notes is more title than it affords most Members, and fewer syllables than the current inquiry list.

The House authorities may regard all this as hypothetical. So, once, was the by-election. Polling day is 13 August. The bin does not bend, and increasingly, neither do the polls.

Disclosure: our constitutional desk consulted the statute of 1313 in the original. It was, like the Count's register, brief, and it closed.

Barnaby Whitlow does not exist. Pieces on this desk are satire: every statement about a real person, a real law or a real investigation is drawn from the public record and listed in the sources below, and everything else is a joke.