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Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend—may I call him that? I feel as though we are friends even though we sit on opposite sides. I am always nervous about the customs of this place: I wanted to say thank God; I meant thank God; and frankly the stars have absolutely nothing to do with it. I am happy to be corrected. Returning to the tidiness of the amendment of the hon. Member for Rhondda, he has not demonstrated, or even provided a shred of evidence to explain why the current point at which Parliament is recalled after an election is a problem or causes any difficulties. We should reject his amendment. The hon. Gentleman has tabled another amendment to regulate the timetable for elections and he has again made a superficially appealing argument about lining up the different election timetables for different tiers of government, but it will not have escaped the attention of Government Members that he has, as ever, lined up with the longer figure. That betrays the deep belief of the Labour party, of which the hon. Gentleman provides a good example, that what the country needs are more politics, longer election campaigns, more leaflets going through doors and more people knocking on one's door just when EastEnders is on or when a good game has started.