In a week when the European Commission passed a law to ban olive oil dipping bowls from restaurant tables on the grounds of hygiene, Nick Clegg said that having a referendum to decide whether or not we should remain in the asylum “would hit jobs and growth”. The two events taken together do explain why Slick Nick  feels so at home in the EU. Speaking later to a carefully selected audience of single-cell molluscs, Mr Clegg asserted that “A vote on our membership of the EU at this critical point in our history will lead to an invasion of lizards armed with clubs hitting every job they can find in the most vicious manner imaginable. As for growths, if you have one anywhere visible I strongly advise you to stay indoors and not go anywhere dangerous like a polling station for example”. Nick Clegg is the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

A close ally of David Cameron meanwhile has called Conservative grassroots supporters “mad swivel-eyed loons” who are forcing Tory MPs to take extremist positions opposing gay marriage and Europe. The Minister – “a close confidante” of Mr Cameron who didn’t want to be named – is very probably Mr Oliver Letwin, well-known habitué of London litter bins for the use of Top Secret document disposal, and the brains behind elected police chiefs. I personally find that cv far more extreme than being against gay marriage and the EU, but each to his own. David Cameron is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Across the corridor in the House of Common Criminals, a close ally of Ed Miliband has urged the Labour Leader to pave the way for a coalition with Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats. The man (happy to be named, as he is rapidly becoming the forgotten man of British politics) is Peter Hain, the man who built his career on being carried away by policemen and digging up cricket pitches. “We need back channels on this issue,” Mr Hain added – not a wise choice of phrase in the current Parliamentary environment. The former South African said that he would be “fighting tooth and nail for an overall majority” but thought it was unlikely to be achieved, possibly because there won’t be any job-hitting or growth-jabbing, which he admitted he found “disappointing”.

Five days ago Ed Miliband said that Britain “must stay in the European Union”, and three days ago David Cameron said that both Miliband and Clegg were “sticking their heads in the sand” about the need for a referendum: they should, he insisted, be prepared, like him, to extract their heads from the sand some time in 2017. In the light of these and many other bits of evidence, former Labour donor Lord Sainsbury called Miliband “average” as a politician, and earlier this week Mary Riddell called him “the Doctor Who of British politics” without satisfactorily explaining in the article what she meant. His speech of earlier in the week was found “disappointing” by those present, “although he was good when taking questions” said one lady. A middleweight Labour MP confided that he “cannot believe that Ed wants to lead us into an Election where everyone wants out of the EU, and we are the only serious Party ruling out a referendum”. Ed Miliband is the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition in Parliament.

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Just sort of let the aggregate of those facts sink in a bit, and then carry on reading.

After the 2015 General Election, we could very easily find that we have somehow – probably inadvertantly – voted in a Coalition between one man who believes olive oil pourers to be a real and present health hazard, and thinks referendums hit things; and another man who may have ambitions to be a Time traveller, but won’t even contemplate leaving a madhouse where olive oil pourers are banned. Whichever way you cut that combo, it doesn’t look good for reality, or indeed Italian restaurants.

On the other hand, we could wind up (as the lesser of two bubonic plagues) with another term of Dave the man, who thinks only swivel-eyed loons are against gay marriages in the EU…and who could very soon afterwards find himself ousted by people who look to me for all the world like half a dozen loons whose eyes never close, on account of swivelling 24 hours a day.

The other runner in the 2015 contest will be a Party led by Nigel Farage, a man infamous this week for his ability to shoot off both feet at once in Scotland….by putting the phone down on a BBC Scotland interviewer, and calling SNP supporters fascist scum. He too might become part of a Tory administration, but if he did Dave would have to go. Thus we’d be left with Government by Seven Swivel-Eyed Loons.

One vaguely comforting thing about this prospect is the, to my mind anyway, very strong likelihood that these coalitions will cancel each other out in terms of electoral support. But when it comes to the choice before the electorate, it’s going to be between one team led by those who have a morbid fear of olive oil bottles, and another crowd dead keen to hand Rupert Murdoch the job of BBC Director General. I wonder what the turnout will be.

It’s hard to see how anyone could construct a Nazi-Soviet pact between those two opposing barmy armies, and that’s why I have a terrible fear that something else might emerge. There are, after all, three people in this Eton-Wall-Game-Meets-Underwater-Rugby unpleasantness who have one thing in common: they would much prefer to stay in the European Union rather than leave it. And they are, of course, Cameron, Miliband, and Clegg.

Yes, I’m afraid the Grand Coalition is a real possibility. United by their common ground on the Olive Oil Pourer issue, this Unholy Trinity would easily command a majority, leaving only Monday Clubbers, Ukippers and Stalinists to pass the time in Opposition with daily eyeball-workouts. It would break the mould of British politics. And every olive pourer in Europe.

Earlier at The Slog: More food for thought on market manipulation