As senior Treasury sources admitted in private tonight that no dates are left on which to hold the General Election, Election Tsar Gordon Brown insisted that Britain could easily borrow some dates on the international calendar markets.

“China has different dates to us because their new year is later than ours,” said the Prime Minister, “In China it’s only January 16th today, and so we will be able to borrow most of March from them and still have a snap election”.

Lord Mandelson assured the press that the borrowing would be well within existing budgets, and require only minor cuts to May and June in order to squeeze the new dates in. But there was a slightly different spin at the Treasury.

“We’ve spun a coin here” said Chancellor Alistair Darling, “and so there will have to be stringent cuts in April, with perhaps further corrections to August and December”.

Attacking the proposals, Opposition Leader David Cameron called the cuts “nowhere near enough” adding that “Labour is living on borrowed time as usual, living for today but forgetting to save for a rainy day, or indeed any day at all before June 6th. Our children will be working day and night to make this up for years to come”.

Vince Cable suggested nationalising May in order to slow it down. “This will create spare time to recycle as new days” he argued.

Faced with unexpected revelations from the Tempus Fugit Helpline, Gordon Brown swore that he had never hit a deadline in his life.