Newspapers have seen secret government plans to extend the month of April in order to postpone the looming general Election. Labour’s position in the opinion polls has been improving of late and the move is seen as an attempt to build momentum prior to polling day. Leaked papers reveal that April will consist of an extra Friday, Saturday and Sunday each week giving the month an extra 24 days.

A source close to Gordon Brown refused to acknowledge the plans, but appeared supportive: “I’ve always enjoyed April,” he mused. “Sometimes, April can be really warm, and there’s Easter as well, with bank holidays and stuff. So, if we’re choosing to extend one month of the year – and I’m not saying it’s true or false – but if we are going to choose one specific month, yes, I’d go for April.”

Calendar experts have slammed the idea, saying that it would “knock other months out of shape” and that “people would just get confused.” Simon Yankshaft of the Institute of Calendarologists said that the plan just “smacks of procrastination”, saying “what if someone had a birthday twice? They’d jump from, say, 28 to 30 in just one year because of Gordon Brown’s ridiculous plans. And what about asparagus at the start of May? It would be asparagus at the end of April, and I bet you the whole farming industry would be to cock. No, if this goes ahead, we’re all doomed.”

Opposition parties have slammed the plan calling it cynical electioneering and ‘bloody stupid’. Opportunistic Tory leader David Cameron said that “April’s a crap month, and nobody wants an extension to April. It rains a lot – imagine 24 extra days of rain. This is pure madness from that slackjawed goggle-eyed, out-of-touch Labour leader.”

“Where’s he going to get the extra days from? I’d say, this being a Labour government, he’d take them from August, when we really want them. One way or another, the public is going to pay for this crazy, short-sighted idea from a desperately long-in-the-tooth government.”

Nick Clegg also said something, but nobody listened.

There is a precedent for this, however. In 1973, during the height of the miner’s strike, Ted Heath extended Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays by 6 hours in order to increase productivity during the 3 day week and Labour used a similar ploy in 1991 to shrink Wednesdays in order to spare Neil Kinnock the ignominy of Prime Minister’s Question Time. Indeed, King Henry VIII decided to shorten certain days and months so as to spend less time with his wives. During his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, he cut Tuesdays down to 2 hours, and the month of June lasted just two days. In one of his diaries, he is quoted as saying “merrily hath passed the monthe of Juyne, just two days of putting up with that wench Catheryne of Aragone and her whyning, and with haste doth arriveth the chopping of her head.“