Hung Parliament Latest

Despite us really suspecting the election is going to end in a slender Conservative majority, the BBC are still reporting that it’s looking like a hung parliament. And, indeed, the swingometer is suggesting this could well be the case.

With that in mind, one of our operatives has just returned from the Commons with some leaked documents revealing just how the deadlock will be broken, in the event of, er, one.

Proposals include:

* A “Political Penalty Shoot-Out”. Five by-elections each, from the most marginal seats the two most popular parties hold. Only two options on each ballot paper, meaning a straight choice, with none of the minor parties skewing the figures.

* A ‘Nice-Off’. The two leaders of the parties with the most seats go through an extra live leadership debate, but this time in front of an audience containing just one person: Mrs Agnes Pardew, officially declared the most undecided voter in Britain. At this point, any kind of tactics may be employed – promises to evict any minor celebrities she might not like, promises to introduce laws that might suit her and no-one else, offers to send her a lovely Victoria Sponge every month for a year, all fair game. At the end of the debates, she casts a solitary vote, and a new ruler is declared.

* The Queen flips a coin.

* Both the cabinet and shadow cabinet to take part in a one-off charity special episode of Total Wipeout. In order to deflect potential claims that the course has an inherent liberal bias, the bouncing balls on the first round to be repainted from ‘all red’ to red, blue and amber.

* An entertainingly complicated “around the world race” between the two contesting party leaders. No planes allowed, in a manner very similar to Michael Palin’s 1989 BBC series Around the World in Eighty Days. Each party leader has just eighty days to get around the globe, with the big twist being that should they both make it back to the Reform Club within the deadline, whichever party leader can produce the most Polaroids of them shaking hands with heads of state from the countries they’ve just passed through, is declared the winner.

* Blow football.

You might scoff at this point, but consider that should any of these proposals be televised live on Pay Per View (we’re informed that David Cameron is currently lobbying for his new chums as BSkyB to get the rights), the UK’s deficit could be reduced dramatically.