An election is coming – and soon

I am finding it hard to capture the scale of the parliamentary battle that will start on Tuesday – because what is at stake is huge, complicated and shifting.

One of its more important combatants described it to me as a “once-in-a-century crisis”.

Another told me it would not only decide how and whether the UK leaves the EU, but also how and whether Scotland breaks away from the UK.

A third said that it would be “extraordinary” if within just a few days the hostilities between MPs did not lead to a general election being called.

And a fourth thought that what happens in parliament – and in the law courts on Thursday when a case is brought about the legality of Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament for five weeks from next week – may permanently alter the balance of power between PM and MPs, between executive and legislature.

So the week in Westminster will – in a proper sense – be extraordinary.