Nelson's Column: Put Thursday, 24th October in your diary…it could be General Election Day

I had a friend in MI5 who left to take a high-powered, high-paid job in Whitehall.

It drove him bananas.

He complained: “If the Security Service dithered as much as government the country would be in ashes.”

So he resigned in frustration and rejoined MI5.

Prevarication is what politicians do best.

And it’s not just Brexit to blame – though MPs joked they’d need sherpas to find division lobbies for Tuesday’s first vote in a month.

A Parliamentary debate on Monday slammed ministers for not introducing emergency public alerts for mobile phones five years after trials.

Australia got them seven years ago and there have been no bushfire deaths since.

India saved thousands of lives with 2.6 million texts this month warning everyone in the path of Cyclone Fani.

Had simliar alerts existed for the Grenfell fire in 2017 lives could have been saved there, too, as evacuation advice changed.

The London Bridge tragedy might have been minimised had people been told an attack was underway.

The Cabinet Office’s lame excuse for delay is that terrorists would also get alerts.

D’oh! Terrorists already know where they are, you lemming brains.

So including them in warning the public of their presence is hardly going to make them go off and blow themselves up somewhere quiet.

In a similar vein, Conservatives are content for a leisurely General Election this time next year under their new leader.

If it’s Boris Johnson he wants no such procrastination.

Allies say he’s pencilled in Thursday, 24th October.

That’s because ballots are best held in British Summer Time which ends that Sunday. An hour less daylight equals lower turnout.

Boris must leave at least 25 working days between Parliament’s dissolution and polling day under electoral rules so the soonest he can announce is early September.

Conveniently that’s when the Commons comes back for two weeks after Summer recess and before party conferences – which would be used to showcase campaigns.

But Boris only wins if MPs allow him to get into the final two contenders and the wider Tory membership choose the victor.

Meanwhile their party continues to disintegrate.

Some MPs now so despise Theresa May they will secretly vote for Nigel Farage, while others reckon they’d get more Conservative votes if the PM quit before Thursday’s EU election.

One MP whispered in my ear: “She’s so bad it’s not just that anyone would be better.

“No one would be better.”

Mrs May confirmed she’ll be out of a job within weeks.

But no point applying for a new one at MI5, Prime Minister.

They don’t take recruits who kick cans down roads.

Taking the centre out of central government

MPs and peers must leave Parliament for six years for restoration work to stop the crumbling Palace of Westminster collapsing.

They’re not going far.

Commons Commissioner Tom Brake is sending MPs to the old Department of Health HQ at Richmond House a few yards away, and peers to the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre over the road.

This exodus sparked calls for Parliament to move permanently somewhere outside London such as Manchester, Sheffield or Birmingham.

A more symbolic site would be the empty field at Lindley Hall Farm, in Fenny Drayton, Leicestershire which Ordnance Survey calculates as the dead centre of Britain.

It makes superficial sense for our legislators to be less Londoncentric. Problem is, you’d also have to move Whitehall. A much bigger task.

Parliament’s job is to hold government to account. That means hauling in ministers and civil servants at a moment’s notice.

That work would be unacceptably delayed if they had to schlep backwards and forwards.

Labour and Tories take early Bath

It’s tosh to say Thursday’s EU election is a referendum on Brexit.

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party needs more than half the vote to prove most people favour leaving Europe without a deal.

Heidi Allen’s Change UK, Lib Dems and Greens all want a second referendum so no change there.

And that should only be a last resort because without a clear majority either way ref2 would be dangerously divisive.

Tories and Labour want to leave with a deal. That just splits the vote now Brexit trumps party allegiance.

And they’re going to get stuffed.

In 2017 the two main parties had 84.5 per cent of the vote.

In January this year that was down to 76 per cent, and now it’s below 50 per cent.

We need a Fed Up with Brexit Party. The FUs.

Or what about the Bath Together Party?

That’s Bang All Their Heads Together until Brexit is sorted.

Whitehall bore games

How do junior Whitehall officials learn how to make the laws which govern us?

They are taught at work to play a board game called Legislate.

I kid you not.

Ballots to the box

Election time gets MPs reminiscing over funny ballot papers.

Tory Andrew Bridgen remembers one on which a voter drew sad face emojis by the Labour and Lib Dem candidates and a smiley face by his.

That vote was allowed.

The one with a sketch of male genitals on it wasn’t.

Begoña is an absolute Markle

This pic proves Meghan Markle is juggling work with bringing up baby Archie, right?

Wrong. It’s Spanish MP lookalike Begoña Villacis, 41, standing in next Sunday’s Madrid mayoral election.

When Spanish media first pictured Harry together with an unknown Meghan, Begoña’s husband, Antonio, came home to say: “Darling, we need to talk”.