COMMENT: Just another day of UK meltdown and hysteria

If they haven't already done so by the time you read this, expect some MP, commentator, or pundit to make some crass linkage between Hitler's invasion of Poland and Boris Johnson's act in rejigging the Parliamentary timetable to give our MPs a few extra days of paid holiday.

With an atmosphere of meltdown and hysteria in Westminster, it can only be a matter of time.

Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP has already called Boris Johnson a "tinpot dictator" who is responsible for "a dark day for democracy." David Lammy has used similar language. The Daily Mirror says Johnson is a "tinpot tyrant."

These are ways to insinuate that Boris is the new Hitler without actually mentioning Hitler, although Lammy has been free and easy with making Nazi comparisons in the past and to imply that Brexit is similar to the rise of Fascism in the 1930s.

In making a judgment on whether we now live in a dictatorship in which democracy has died, we need to unpick the evidence from over the past four years.

In Britain in 2015, the party offering an in-out referendum on Britain's membership of the EU won the general election. MPs across the House voted overwhelmingly in favour of holding such a referendum. When the referendum was held, the electorate voted to leave by a percentage margin of 52 to 48.

MPs across the House voted overwhelmingly to legally enact Brexit by triggering Article 50, to take effect on March 29 this year. Another general election saw parties supporting Brexit gain the overwhelming number of seats.

Then MPs voted twice to delay Brexit and three times to reject the deal offered by the EU.

All this came as part of the second longest Parliamentary session in British history in which Brexit has been discussed repeatedly at length and in detail over a period of over three years.

During that time MPs have proven unwilling or unable to agree anything at all, and have given the distinct impression that if they argued until hell freezes over they would still make no progress.

On the basis that past performance is some guide to future performance, the idea that an extra few days of debate will make all the difference is difficult to accept. They are not exactly on the brink of a breakthrough. They are in their trenches and have settled down for a long winter.

And if you think Brexit debate is going to be curtailed, just you watch. The Speaker will be prepared to break every convention and precedent in the book to ensure MPs get a chance to debate.

There are other options as well. MPs could sit into the early hours and at weekends, and also abandon or postpone party conferences to give themselves more time, although that would be a problem for Jeremy Corbyn who sets such store on what conference decides.

The MPs' extra few days' paid holiday – estimates range from around three to seven days – doesn't even span Britain's departure date from the EU. They'll be back way before.

With Boris Johnson appearing to be serious about wanting to leave on October 31, it has suddenly put the question to the forces who want to stop a no-deal exit.

They have failed to get their ducks in a row despite all the time they have had, and have relied on making up blocking and delaying moves as they have gone along. Now they have been wrongfooted.

Labour's policy of "constructive ambiguity" has reached the end of the road. It now has to decide what it actually wants and how far it is prepared to go.

There is a question in the air which is fundamental. Is this a battle to stop no deal? Or is it a battle to stop Brexit?

A weary public deserves to be told.

It is of course ludicrous to think there is any parallel with events of September 1939. But maybe the way Boris Johnson is acting is an indication that he realises there is indeed a war on – an ideological war in which, when his opponents say they will use "all available means" to stop a no-deal Brexit, he feels he must be prepared to use all available means to push Brexit through, do or die.

But whether you support Leave, or Remain, don't try to tell me that MPs haven't had enough time for debate.

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Much attention has been focussed on Bumgate in the wake of the airing of the new Jane Austen period drama on the telly, Sanditon.

Apparently, we are being assured, it was quite normal in Austen's time for stark naked men to run down the beach in front of women, children, and horses.

Personally, I doubt it, and wouldn't recommend trying it on Barmouth beach, even today.

On consideration I have come to the conclusion that Sanditon is a Monty Pythonesque parody, with a bit of male nudity thrown in to misdirect reviewers and confuse the tabloids.

My conclusion is nothing to do with Bumgate, nor with the fact that Sanditon looks as if it has been constructed from parts from a box labelled "DIY Jane Austen Period Drama Kit," with a bit of dodgy CGI scenery thrown in.

The giveaway is that cliched staple from such period dramas – The Ball.

For half the show there was a big build up to The Ball. We all know that The Ball is a pivotal device.

When The Ball actually happened, unconvincing dancing was suddenly enlivened by some moves which would not have been out of place in Saturday Night Fever.

Spoiler alert: I predict there will be a marriage.