and already the talk is of a general election.

No ifs and buts, says Mr Johnson,

Britain must be out of the EU by October the 31.

So, Robert, is this real, the election talk?

And how does it square with the exit date?

Well, I think there are two answers to that, of course.

My instinct is that he doesn't want a general election

before Brexit for a number of reasons, one of which

I think he's articulated, is that the Conservatives need

to deliver on Brexit before they go to the polls.

Also, I think for a lot of people

who passionately believe in Brexit,

and that's who the kind of people he's surrounded himself

with, do you really want to risk Brexit by giving

the voters a chance to stop it?

On the other hand, he's also keenly

aware of the realities of his parliamentary arithmetic.

Just one-vote

He's got an official majority of just one,

it's fractionally larger and that in reality.

But nonetheless, he could be voted down at any time.

There's an awful lot of talk of vote of confidence

to bring down the government.

And that's led by the Remainers in chief, Dominic Grieve,

and one or two ex-disgruntled...

That's exactly right.

I mean, and the Labour, no...

there's all kinds of conversations going on between

the Labour party and Conservative Remainers about

how they can stop a no-deal Brexit.

And Boris Johnson and his advisers,

Dominic Cummings who's effectively

his chief strategist now, are looking at this

and they know there's a real possibility

of a general election.

So their question is, A, how do we get this over the line?

But also, the other message they want to send out to people

is, we're not going to let a general election stop us

from delivering Brexit on the date we set.

So don't count on a parliamentary cavalry coming

to your rescue.

Right.

A word on Dominic Cummings - the Rasputin, Svengali,

any other nicknames for this man who sees himself

as one of the great power centres in this new government?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, Dominic Cummings, who most notably was

the architect of the vote leave victory in the 2016 referendum,

rewarded for this by being played by Benedict Cumberbatch

in a TV serialisation.

You see, an actor who plays Sherlock Holmes and Alan

Turing playing you it is not good for controlling anyone's

ego.

But he is a serious campaign strategist

and he is bringing real discipline

to a government of believers in Brexit.

And people are prepared to go for a no-deal Brexit

if they have to.

And Cummings came back with a memorable slogan

"take back control."

But here's an irony, he talked about take back control

but parliament should in Britain post Brexit.

But in fact, this government wants

to disregard a parliamentary vote.

There hasn't yet been a parliamentary vote

to stop a no-deal Brexit.

We certainly think it's possible there could be,

but the parliamentary forces have

been erratic in their efforts to resist Brexit so far.

They have managed the odd success,

but there's not that many opportunities

between now and October 31 and there's not that many vehicles.

And any chance of this supposed national unity government

involving Remainers and Labour and Greens taking force instead

of the Johnson administration?

Well, I mean, look, this whole process has had more twists

and shocks than any.

So it'd be foolish to rule out anything.

I find it very difficult to see how you get to that government

of national unity, for the simple reason that it requires

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party.

It would either require Conservative Remainers

to be prepared to serve under Jeremy Corbyn briefly

to stop Brexit.

Or, since I don't think they would be,

it would require Jeremy Corbyn to allow the Labour party

to serve under somebody other than him.

And I think it's quite difficult to make that work,

on top of which you do have some Labour Brexit and other

independents who would not support it anyway.

And finally, one figure we haven't mentioned

is Nigel Farage.

Do you think there's any circumstances under which Mr

Johnson would countenance a tactical alliance

with the Brexit party led by Mr Farage?

Well, again, you can't rule anything out.

I think it's difficult for a couple of reasons.

Obviously, it depends on when the election is

- whether it is before or after Brexit.

I think Nigel Farage is essentially

running another shakedown on the Conservatives

just like he did to get the referendum in the first place.

Because he knows that if he stands candidate

against the Conservatives in an election before Brexit,

what he is guaranteeing is that Remain minded parties win.

So he's got to be careful at this

but he could certainly scare them

into staying true to what he considers an acceptable Brexit.

All thinks he's really after in terms of a pact,

if he really thinks it's viable, is the right to stand unopposed

by Tories in Labour seats.

I think if things got desperate enough, it's possible

but it's not something I think the Conservatives would

want to cede and they'll resist it if they can.

Now I'm going to put you on the spot as a closer,

not to ask about Queen's Park Rangers, your team,

but what bet for an election before Christmas?

Before Christmas, I think there's a reasonable bet.

What's that?

60 per cent?

Yeah, 60 per fent or so.

But I think the real question is whether it comes before Brexit.

There's no question the Conservatives will

want to go early, but the question for after Brexit

is, what is the immediate Brexit moment like?

If it's quite smooth, then a quick election

looks quite appealing.

If it's chaotic, well, that may not look so clever.

Robert Shrimsley, thanks very much.