No election for now

The speculation is finally over. BBC News: Brown rules out autumn election.

So numerous party activists will be breathing a sigh of relief as they now don't have to get time off work, traipse around on cold dark evenings, bother voters for no good reason and endure hectic candidate selections with all the usual rows.

And voters can be relieved as well. There'll be no extended news specials every night to cover the election, no forest of paper coming through letter boxes, no megaphone cars bellowing at them in the high street, no constant ringing at the doorbell and on the telephone and so forth. And no mass disenfranchisement of voters who've recently come of age or moved - many, many students would have been denied their right to vote in an election in November.

There was never any need for an election this autumn. Now everyone's been spared the harsh negatives of it.