British election

A fairly boring election, but I watched 5 hours of it today. It was too hot to do anything else.

Blair's favorite adviser Peter Mandelson, who's been disgraced, rehabilitated, disgraced and not-quote-rehabilitated since the last election, gives a victory speech talking about his enemies taking a pound of flesh. Euro of flesh, surely?

Normally, these speeches are fairly anodyne, but one Labour victor attacked his opponent for running an especially contemptible race. That opponent: Mark Reckless.

There is a man in a crab suit running for Parliament in Kensington.

One independent candidate wins on a platform of saving the local hospital--that's his whole platform.

Given the reform of the House of Lords, it is possible for the first time for a hereditary peer to be elected to the Commons, and one is, the Earl of Thurso (LibDem, Cairthness). That means that the Commons are no longer common (the giant crab would have done that just as well).