For a while I too had got caught in the whole spin business about “our lazy parliamentarians who have delayed the end of summer recess unashamedly”. Having rightly sussed the nationalist ploy to survive to the start of the recess and then hopefully plot the end of Franco over the summer, I wrongly assumed that the October return to business was something extraordinary and that this year’s parliamentary break was a little OTT. Enter Fausto the nitpicker and lo and behold.. there’s no such thing as an abnormal October return to work. It turns out that parliament summer breaks normally end on or around the 1st of October.
There is, after all, nothing strange for parliamentarians to get back to school almost a month after the last school bus started its routine rounds.
For your perusal here is the list of opening sittings after summer recess for the current legilature:
In 2011 the parliamentarians brought their sun-tanned behinds back to the seats on the 3rd of October.
In 2010 they left their yachts and summer houses on the 29th of September.
2009 marked their “earliest” return to their seats – the 28th September.
In 2008, the first post-election relative minority government and opposition sat down for work after summer on the 29th September.
There. Franco. No need for so much fuss aye?
