Polling Booth. Photograph: PA
Say what you like about the candidates, but you've got to love a general election. Democracy, a wise person once said, is good.
There was brisk trade down at the polling station when the blog cast its vote this morning, on which, wholly unscientific basis, we forecast a high turnout. (The blog has never had an easy relationship with scientific rigour.)
That's the last you'll hear on the subject from us until the polls have closed and the results come in. Unless we think of something that we really want to say before then. Instead, for a change of tone, we have decided to mobilise the blog's limited foreign language resources to have a look at what world thinks of our charming British election.
Browses extensive collection of blog dictionaries, chooses one at random.
In Russia, Kommersant, a serious business-oriented daily, is bemused by the lack of TV campaigning and the relative politeness of our political debate:
In the week before the election Conservative leader Michael Howard decided to accuse Tony Blair of lying to parliament when he started the Iraq war. Now in pubs, over a glass of beer, people are saying that it is not done to thus accuse a rival of lying - Michael Howard should rather have spoken about his own programme for government ...
.... Political battle is waged by post - services that candidates enjoy free of charge during the campaign. Candidates are also allowed to go from house to house asking for support. For this process the Labour candidate has to wear a red ribbon and the Conservative candidate a blue one, so that people can look out and decide in advance whether or not to open the door.
And from France, Le Monde (serious daily) comes to the same conclusion about Michael Howard's ill judgment in using the 'l' word.
The violence of [Conservative] leader Michael Howard's attacks on Tony Blair, whom he has repeatedly denounced as "liar", seems to have shocked voters. As for the Liberal Democrats ... they are still seen mainly as a protest party. That is why Tony Blair is well placed to offer Labour an historic victory that would consolidate its position as the natural party of government.
...er that's us out of foreign languages now. Happy voting.
