Meanwhile, Across the Big Pond....

Congratulations go to our American Cousins who have scored a great success with their midterm election results! Hopefully this will just serve as a lesson to Blair here. How they both got through the last elections beggars belief really.

And as for Donald Rumsfelds 'resignation', well it seems a bit odd to me. Forgive me if this sounds thick, but surely any actions he decided upon had to be cleared by the man in charge didn't they?

Granted, Rumsfeld was the architect of almost everything that has crashed in American Iraq policy. But did he fall or was he pushed? I think it's fairly obvious that he was a sacrificial lamb.

This party fought a campaign of no great distinction or identity, without any proposals for dealing with it, and they have brought down a man who Bush said would remain for the next two years only five days ago.

This has been a single issue campaign - the war on Iraq. And now an extraordinary message has been sent to the President by the US people. Once you have stripped out all the business of Republican and Democrat, you reach the inescapable conclusion that voters believed the President had to be told to change course on Iraq. Well done to you all!