Bizarre and Machiavellian theories were spinning round Westminster last night as to how the government could get its European Elections Bill through Parliament in time for June's European elections to be held under PR.
They included scenarios in which the government votes against its own Bill in the Lords, or has only the briefest of parliamentary sessions specifically to get the measure onto the statute book.
Downing Street last night set out how the Parliament Act - which allows the Commons effectively to bypass the Lords if peers persist in opposing MPs - would work.
A spokesman said: "It is not a gun that the Government can hold to the head of the Lords telling them to vote one way or another, or the government imposing deadlines. Rather, it is a way of ensuring the democratically-elected government ultimately gets its way in that a Bill becomes law which has been passed by the House of Commons in two successive sessions and rejected by the Lords."
Under the 1949 Parliament Act, one year must elapse between the Bill's Second Reading in the first of the two sessions and its passing in the Commons in the second session.