Francina To The Spanish Governmental Rescue

"Five. Four. Three. Two. One ..." "Cut! Cut!"

Nothing's going. Shot in Supermarianoation, the latest in the fantasy franchise that is "The Government Which Forgot It Was A Government" is undergoing yet further re-scripting. On Tracy Island the lights were flashing on the portraits at Governmental Rescue in the presidential HQ at the Consolat de Mar. "Take Pod 4, Virgil, the Nationalists Mole." "Yes father, er I mean, F.A.B. mother." Francina Tracy, the matriarch founder of Governmental Rescue, had decided that the time had come for all good Pedros to come to the aid of the PSOE party by combining with nationalist parties and Podemos (just like on Tracy Island) in order to stop the evil Super Mariano.

He, Super that is, was oddly enough having similar thoughts. He was emitting evil ones from his bunker in Madrid. "Catalonia, Catalonia," he mysteriously intoned. Would the Catalan half-brothers of the Spanish nation succumb to his evil thoughts? Despite several years of plots and intrigues to deny independence, Super Mariano was now prepared to give houseroom to the CDC in Catalonia in a Congress carve-up designed to secure his investiture as president (prime minister).

Away from all of this, Dec (Albert Rivera of the C's) was revealing what many had suspected: that he is a vacillating and opportunistic little C. The double act with Ant (Pedro Sánchez of PSOE) seemed well and truly to have been annulled. Instead, Dec was being led by the hand of Super Mariano to face the tests of the political jungle. Together they would gain celebrity for governmental rescue. On Tracy Island Francina was having none of that, having trademarked the name.

But then Super Mariano began transmitting those evil nationalist thoughts. Albert, immune from birth to such brain interference and equally immune to any notion of Catalonian independence (or anyone else's for that matter), was scandalised. There will be no investiture, Super. Not if you get into bed with the nationalists. Mariano, meanwhile, merely cackled. Either it's me or no one. And if it's not me, there'll be another election.

In next week's episode of "The Government Which Forgot It Was A Government" the King will have to undergo another round of those excruciating photo opportunity moments, shaking hands with all and sundry Spanish politicians, none of whom will have the slightest possibility of being able to contribute to forming a government. The King will smile politely and benignly while thinking more about arrangements for the family hols on Tracy Island. At Governmental Rescue, meanwhile, Brains Jarabo of Podemos will be imploring Francina to blow all the tourist tax revenue on an eco-friendly agrarian heritage sun-and-beach tourism alternative spacecraft to orbit the Earth.

Fantasy franchise? Oh yes.