Bagpuss works - official

We made it. Half a rainforest of leaflets, many many phonecalls, lots of billboards and much shouting and 100 people still didn't manage (Stephen Twigg, for fucksake! Apparently it was the Liberals), but we made it. Iraq was a big issue throughout the campaign, so I think what finally swung it for us was Michael Howard, as a person, and the presence on polling day of my lucky Bagpuss socks.
My Dad analysed the result over the phone while I was still in bed at the ungodly hour of 11.45am; majority of 66, 40 Blairites, 47 Brownites, however-many (I can't remember) swingers, and around 30 bolshy bastards of the kind that I love best. So Our Leader may have a slightly more difficult time getting the ID cards et al through than he thought. It'll be a wee bit odd having a smallish majority like that, though. I'm used to seeing the Labour benches crammed to bursting point with women in suits, but - ach, we're in, shut up. And Michael Howard is leaving the building, or at least stopping being leader of the Tory Party (yes, Tory, not Conservative, see entry last month), so we'll not see anything of his strange face soon, good. They may of course choose someone even more repellent, but apart from Boris Johnson there's not really anyone quite so annoying. Watch this space.
And finally. My tory candidate, as I have said, has been bombarding me with leaflets, free gifts, et cetera ad nauseam, for over a year. Gavin Brown. Gavin Brown vs. Nigel Griffiths MP (Edinburgh South: Lab). Nigel Griffiths, with the help of my Bagpuss socks, fucking wasted him. Go Nigel.