The metaphorical elephant has grown so huge that it has run out of room. So much so that there is no longer a room big enough to house it.
Elephants are sensitive creatures. This breed thrives on neglect. However this neglect must be balanced. It is essential to tiptoe delicately around both sides of it. If this is not done, it grows in an uncontrolled fashion.
Elephants produce a large amount of waste. It is the job of the pundits who carefully neglect it to tidy up its shit in a euphemistic manner. Unfortunately this has not been done. Instead the pundits have added large quantities of bullshit to the mix.
The RSPCA has been contacted. Although they are studiously ignoring the elephant, they lack the manpower to ignore it properly.
Meanwhile the elephant has outgrown every room on the planet. It is so large that it threatens to disrupt shipping to and from the UK. People who fear the elephant are fleeing the country the best they can.
Instead, the elephant has made its home in Ireland. Day after day it sits there, on the border, its immense size making it very hard to ignore properly.
In Whitehall, there is no consensus about how the correct way to ignore the elephant. Indeed, two years after it was brought into being, arguments still rage over what sort of elephant it is.
“Elephant means elephant,” claims Mrs T May from Maidenhead. “It’s a tautological paradox. Let me be quite clear about that!”
“The elephant is going to decimate the economy,” announces Mr P Hammond of Runnymede. “That is what metaphorical constructs do.”
“Whatever type of elephant it is, it is the wrong type,” says Mr J Rees-Mogg of Somersetshire. “It should be identical to the impossible elephant that exists only in my imagination.”
“What a load of fibblefabble,” states Mr B Johnson, late of Uxbridge. “Here, do you mind if I kip on your sofa and dibble your wife this evening?”
There is one unarguable, tangible benefit. In 20, 50 or even 100 years, the elephant will perish and leave behind a vast quantity of ivory.