While we were off air: No general election

I chose quite a day to have lunch in London with friends and forget about blogging for a bit. There is to be no general election this autumn, England beat Australia and the All Blacks are out of the Rugby World Cup too.

Looking over the coverage of Gordon Brown's announcement, it is clear that Iain Dale had a good day.

He points us to a transcript of an interview where Adam Boulton says:

In the coming days people will talk about media hysteria and the media ramping up this election.

"Let's be in no doubt about it: The reason why we were on election standby was because very senior officials close to Gordon Brown, and indeed Cabinet Ministers, told all of us that they were preparing for a general election and, if the polls were good enough, that general election would be called.

"Gordon Brown had the opportunity - I myself said to him 'If you want to stop this speculation, just say that there's not going to be an election this year' - he refused to do so at the time of his conference.

"This has nothing to do with the media. The reason why everyone has been so excited about a general election is the governing party - the Labour Party - and senior members and officials of it, have said that is what we are doing.

I also like Iain's observation that Ed Balls reminds him of Alan B'stard's sidekick Piers Fletcher-Dervish.