SOMEWHERE in an alternative and better universe Jeremy Corbyn got to his feet in the Commons last Wednesday and spoke the following words:

“I’ve listened carefully to the Prime Ministers reasons for bringing this motion to the House today and I am not convinced. I have a different explanation. Will she confirm that Sir Lynton Crosby’s company were commissioned by the Tory party to survey a dozen or more seats potentially affected by the expenses scandal? Will she further confirm that the first report from the Crown Prosecution Service is due by the 20th of next month and that by the early part of June a decision will have been made on whether to prosecute more than a dozen Tory MPs. And finally will she confirm that she is acting on the advice of Sir Lynton and others to hold a General Election now rather than face the elimination of her majority by the consequences of Tory Party corruption?

“I believe that the answer to these questions is Yes and therefore the opposition will offer no support for the Government today. Instead we will await the decisions of the Crown Prosecution Service and then, if the facts warrant it, lay down our own motion of no confidence in this tawdry, incompetent and illegitimate Government.”

IF Jeremy Corbyn had taken this approach then UK politics would have been turned upside down. The worst that could have happened to Comrade Corbyn is that he would have demonstrated that he is no Tory footstool. The best is that he would have set the scene for the disintegration of this hard right, hard Brexit Government.

The truth is that nobody — not even Channel 4’s indefatigable Michael Crick who is chiefly responsible for bringing these matters to light — can be sure what role the expenses scandal played in Theresa May’s fateful decision to break her oft repeated word on holding the early election.

However, we can certainly dismiss the official explanation for the election out of hand. The Prime Minister has a comfortable Commons majority on Brexit. No doubt the Prime Minister does not brook any opposition whatsoever but to complain that she was bounced into an early election by the Liberal Democrats threat to bring the business of Westminster to a halt is beyond absurd. I can personally assure Theresa May that if anyone is going to play Parnell with Westminster it shall not be Tim Farron!

Similarly the weakness of Corbyn and Labour is not the fundamental reason for calling an election. Of course Labour division is what makes a Tory dash for the big majority possible but the more strategic and preferred course would have been to leave the present opposition leader in place. Why on earth would a Tory Prime Minister want to exchange Jeremy Corbyn for anyone else, anytime soon?

It is certainly possible that it has dawned on the Prime Minister that the economic and political storm clouds are starting to gather. The forward looking indicators on the economy, such as the industrial production index and retail sales figures, have taken a nose dive southwards while even the sunniest and most optimistic of Brexiteers by now must be realising that Brexit negotiations are the stuff of which nightmares are made.

However, I cannot shake the feeling that it is not ifs, buts and maybes that really move a Prime Minister to take the serious reputational risk of so blatantly defaulting on a promise made no less than seven times. In these situations what matters is political force majeure.

We do know the following. The expenses issues are ongoing and will shortly come to a legal crunch. The Electoral Commission has already investigated and fined the Tories for missing expenditure. This is important. In addition to the non-counting of the touring “battlebus” towards any constituency expense and a shed load of lost invoices, the Commission found over £200,000 of expenditure totally missing or unaccounted for — in theory enough to blow away the spending limits of dozens of constituencies. And we also know that the Prime Minister is likely to be aware of the full extent of the Tory problems given that her own Chief of Staff, Nick Timothy, was involved in the South Thanet 2015 campaign.

In addition Crosby Texter polling were indeed asked to survey these key constituencies and Mike Smithson of the respected website, Political Betting, writing BEFORE the election announcement, says that his sources have assured him that the polling was about potential by-elections not a General Election.

And that brings us to the rub. If the Tories believe that they were faced with a genuine risk of by elections which would erode their narrow majority then a General Election becomes significantly more attractive. To lose a few MPs in the next parliament with a predicted majority of 100 plus is careless. To lose them with the current parliamentary majority of 17 is catastrophic.

Whether or not the English judicial system actually has the sort of integrity and calibre which would risk depriving the Government of a majority to enforce the rule of law is a moot point.

The only thing that matters is that the Tory high command saw it as a real risk and certainly their recent experience with the Supreme Court judges on Brexit would not give them any confidence that it was safe to leave matters in the hands of the courts.

This a control freak Government. Parliamentary opposition - the very essence of democratic choice - is vilified as sabotage , the judges are the “enemies of the people”. It is why it is the responsibility of all social democrats — indeed all democrats — to rally behind whichever progressive force is best placed to call a halt to this headlong descent into political madness.

Faced then with a real risk of the expenses scandal spiralling out of control and, from the point of view of Theresa May, would it not have looked far better to take charge, to shatter the opposition — or “saboteurs” — and move to impose your will on the body politic. And the only real risk on Wednesday was that the opposition leader wouldn’t be daft enough to fall for the gambit and then leave the Prime Minister hanging high, dry and without a majority.

However, Jeremy Corbyn faithfully, fatefully and unwittingly played the role of the sap and now we are faced with the prospect that the Tories did not just buy one election by cheating on expenses in the south of England.

They could have bought two.