According to the article in The Irish Independent, Tony has been a closeted (not to say, Cloistered :) follower of the Faith for a long time, but feared to make it Official whilst still PM because of potential constitutional difficulties:

Tony Blair is “certain” to become a Roman Catholic shortly after he steps down from office next week, friends of the British PM have said. They believe it will happen “sooner rather than later”.

Mr Blair is likely to discuss his conversion with Pope Benedict XVI, with whom he will hold talks in Rome tomorrow after attending his last summit of European Union leaders in Brussels.

…There have been persistent rumours that the Prime Minister would convert to Catholicism but Downing Street has always insisted that he remains a member of the Church of England.

Now friends say Mr Blair will formalise his already close affiliation to the Catholic Church. They say his “spiritual guide” in making the decision has been his wife, Cherie. They have brought up their four children as Catholics.

…It is believed that Mr Blair decided to remain an Anglican while he was Prime Minister because of the possible legal and political difficulties of converting while in office.

Although Britain has never had a Catholic prime minister, the church has said there would be no constitutional bar to Mr Blair joining while he was still in office. But some lawyers believe the 1829 Emancipation Act, which granted civil rights to Roman Catholics, may still prevent a Catholic from becoming Prime Minister. It says that no Catholic adviser to the monarch can hold civil or military office.

…As Prime Minister Mr Blair has been cautious about his religious beliefs. As Alastair Campbell, his former director of communications, once famously said: “We don’t do God.”

Read the whole lot.

PS: In other news of British spiritual practices :), the Ministry of Justice has created its own home team of morris dancers ~

A team of morris dancing civil servants from the new Ministry of Justice have been given permission to call themselves the Lord Chancellor’s Folk.

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, gave the go-ahead after considering a two page report prepared by an official in his private office.

…In the two page submission, leaked to The Times newspaper, a member of Lord Falconer’s private office briefs him on the history of morris dancing.

The document says the newly-formed Ministry of Justice group dance in the Cotswolds’ Tradition and in the Barmpton Style, which involves the “use of handkerchiefs and sticks”.

…It adds: “Morris dancing is currently one of the Icons of England on the Department of Culture, Media and Sport site, alongside a cup of tea, a stiff upper lip and a bowler hat.”

….a Ministry of Justice spokesman denied time had been wasted on the issue and said staff members were entitled to a hobby.

[Spot on. / ~ the civilservantpensioner guestclogger :]

…The Ministry of Justice has recently been under fire after Lord Falconer announcing 25,000 prisoners could be released early on licence to ease prison overcrowding in England and Wales.

View the whole dance. :)

Final (? :) Update, Sun. May 27: see Way Below.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *
With the official tally just underway on the customary & commendable Irishtime schedule :) following yesterday’s Poblacht na hÉireann general election, the results are in for the punters:

The race to be the next Taoiseach is all over according to Paddy Power bookies, which has announced it is paying out on Bertie Ahern to fill the post.

The bookmaker’s Call is of course based on the Latest blight to arrive in Ireland from abroad: the Exit Poll ;> ~

Political parties are studying the results of an RTÉ exit poll which suggests that Fianna Fáil will win almost exactly the same share of the vote as in 2002, but that Fine Gael will increase its vote by around 4%.

The poll, carried out by Lansdowne Market Research, shows decreases in support for Labour and the PDs, while the Greens and Sinn Féin will be disappointed not to have made a major breakthrough.

The process of counting votes in the General Election is under way at 43 constituencies. Early tallies which are a strong indication of trends will be available by mid-morning.

First results are expected by mid-afternoon.

Whole thing. The polling is re First Preference votes only. Under Ireland’s very excellent :) Single Transferable Vote system, the “transfer votes” ~ occurring when your 1st Choice is eliminated and your Lesser ballot ranking(s) are added to a Survivor’s total in subsequent count(s) ~ can have a big impact on the final results.

Here’s a BBC take; and a couple of other BBC pieces, on life astride the Celtic Tiger in the little land that has become the Envy of all Europe :).

PM Ahern, by the way, despite his major role in Prodding & Cajoling them into making Peace & joining Government in the Six Counties, says his Fianna Fáil will not Coalesce with Sinn Féin in governance of the Republic.

For those who wish to join me in breathlessly following the returns as they creep in :) here’s the Radio Telefís Éireann election 2007 main page.

UPDATE 3:45 p.m. EDT: Taoiseach Bertie Ahern looks on pace for a 3rd term, though the identity of Fianna Fáil’s prospective coalition partner(s) is less clear. Here’s an auto-updating summary of the declared national results.

Also quite significantly, the Toilets are open again at the vote-counting centre for the Wicklow district:

…However due to a scare over water contamination, there is no drinking water available…

It was understood a tanker was en route to provide drinking water…

Drinking? Water? Shudder… :)

UPDATE 2, 1:00 a.m. EDT: With counting complete in 34 of the 43 constituencies, for 145 out of the 166 Dáil seats, Bertie Ahern’s Fianna Fáil (translation, Soldiers of Destiny :) has taken 72, to a combined total of 73 for all other parties and independents. / The Transfer votes in the 21 seats remaining Undeclared will tell the Tale.

UPDATE 3, Sun. May 27 4:30 a.m. EDT:

With all 166 seats Declared, Fianna Fáil wins 78 to an aggregate 88 for all others. Breakdown:

Fianna Fáil 78
Fine Gael 51
Labour 20
Progressive Democrats 2
Green Party 6
Sinn Féin 4
Others 5

Bertie Ahern is now Cogitating over with Whom to coalesce for to Get to Eighty-Four and a Government. / Evidently it can’t be #2 Fine Gael (which made a Big comeback in this election), since they are the core of the present-day center-left Opposition and (oddly) also the political descendant of the ancestral Pro-Partition Foe in the unCivil-War Troubles of the 1920’s. / And apparently, as well as somewhat Paradoxically, the hard-socialist Sinn Féin (whose showing was distinctly Disappointing) can’t be a Partner either, since Bertie has ruled that option Out despite his Coaxing & Bullying of SF into Participation in Peaceful nonParamilitary Politics in the North. / But, it seems, all Other options are on the Table in The Repooblich. :>

49 to 46, with 34 Abstentions:

Alex Salmond has made political history after becoming the first Nationalist to be elected first minister of Scotland.

The SNP leader was voted into office in parliament by 49 votes to 46, after he was supported by the Greens. The Lib Dems and the Conservatives abstained.

Mr Salmond will head the first minority administration since devolution, saying he would seek parliament’s approval “policy by policy”.

…The Scottish Parliament election almost two weeks ago saw the SNP win 47 seats, just one ahead of Scottish Labour, while the Scots Liberal Democrats were left with 16.

The Scottish Conservatives have 17 MSPs, although one of their number, Alex Fergusson, has taken up the politically neutral job of presiding officer.

The Scottish Greens have two MSPs and the colourful Independent Margo MacDonald, who abstained from the first minister vote altogether, was also re-elected.

Mr Salmond was voted first minister after seeing off a final challenge from Scottish Labour leader Jack McConnell.

He became the first Nationalist to win power in the party’s 73-year history.

His election was greeted with applause and cheering in the Scottish Parliament chamber.

…”I believe Scotland is ready for change, ready for reform,” he told MSPs

Mr McConnell, the former first minister, congratulated Mr Salmond on his victory and said he would be proud to lead the largest opposition party the Scottish Parliament has ever had.

…”Voltaire once said that governments need both shepherds and butchers and I think Alex may need to be more of a shepherd than a butcher in his new role, looking around this flock here and trying to secure majorities for his policies,” said Mr McConnell.

Read the whole bloody lot :). Oddly enough, though the Paper-thin-Plurality ScotNats now Lead their devolved government whilst the plainly second-Place Northern Ireland republicans play [appropriately] 2nd Fiddle :) in Theirs, it seems that the Northeast Ulster rebels may be Chronologically closer to their goal of a united Ireland than the Highlands & Islands folk are to theirs of an independent Scotland. / Go figure, Angus. :)

* * * * * * * * * *
In Other UK news, looks like GordonBrown has a Labour Lock on 10 Downing come 27 June; and seems Prince Harry will not be deployed to Iraq after all. Now why couldn’t they have just Announced that in the First place? Bloody ‘ell. Get ye the Sons your Fathers got, and God will save the Queen. (Apologies to A.E. Housman :)

“You see, we lost the Ent Albatross wives. We lost them and cannot find them.”

A lovesick albatross has spent the last 40 years unsuccessfully looking for romance in Scotland, 8,000 miles away from his natural breeding grounds.

The lonely bird, dubbed Albert, is thought to have first arrived in Scotland after being blown off course in the South Atlantic in 1967.

For the past four decades he has been engaged in a futile attempt to woo gannets on several remote islands.

But experts said Albert had no prospect of finding a mate so far from home.

You know, Albert the Albatross isn’t the first creature to spend many lonely years in Scotland, unable to find a mate from within his own species. He just needs to discover the solution that other lovesick Scotsmen stumbled upon long ago. :)

(Hat tip: my dad.)

And what sweet Doves, their hour come ’round at last,
Flutter toward Belfast to be born?

{ ~ with Deepest apologies to W.B. Yeats :}

It being the day some swore they would never See, the Democratic Unionist Party-Sinn Fein coalition government has quietly & politely taken office :

Northern Ireland’s major Protestant and Catholic parties joined together Tuesday to form a power-sharing government, marking a “new era of politics” and an end to three decades of sectarian conflict in the province.

Protestant Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley was sworn in as the Northern Ireland assembly’s first minister and key player Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein will take on the role of deputy first minister.

…Paisley, 80, and McGuinness, 56, arrived within minutes of each other Tuesday morning and both set an optimistic tone.

“It is a special day because we’re making a new beginning,” Paisley said. “I believe we’re starting on a road which will bring us back to peace and to prosperity.”

Paisley’s deputy McGuinness, said he was “increasingly confident” that the new government would work, saying it was a “good day.”

“The happenings here today are surely going to represent a fundamental change of approach with parties moving forward together to build a better future for the people that we represent,” he said.

(Tony Blair & Bertie Ahern, proud parents of born-again Fraternal twins Ian & Martin, looked on, beaming. :)

…Dr. Brendan O’Duffy, a senior lecturer with Queen Mary University in London, told CNN there was still a threat of political gridlock and a lot of work to do looking forward. But goodwill between the players and the “delicate power sharing” would allow people to “clash constitutionally instead of violently,” he said.

Read the whole miraculous thing. And here’s to the grand Orange & Green Coalition. May all Good luck and Wisdom attend* their deliberations.

(*Also may I occasionally, disguised as the proverbial Fly on the Wall. Ohhh the backroom Meetings are goin’ to be Fierce. ;)

The AP has the guest list for tonight’s White House state dinner in honor of Queen Elizabeth II. In case anyone was wondering, Professor Kelley is not on it. :)

UPDATE: On a more serious Kelley-related note:

Back on March 5, several top Justice Department officials were summoned for an emergency meeting at the White House. On the agenda: Going over “what we are going to say” about why eight U.S. attorneys had been summarily fired.

The reason for the urgency: principal associate deputy attorney general William Moschella was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee the next day.

Deputy White House counsel William Kelley sent an e-mail over to Justice early in the afternoon, saying that he had “been tasked” with pulling the meeting together, and that “we have to get this group together with some folks here asap.”

The meeting was held at the White House later that day. And who did Kelley mean by “some folks here”? Well, among others, Karl Rove — the White House’s chief political operative, and the man who may very well have set the unprecedented dismissals in motion in the first place.

But after the coaching session, Moschella went out and told Congress that there was no significant White House involvement in the firings, as far as he knew.

Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek: “Now some investigators are saying that Rove’s attendance at the meeting shows that the president’s chief political advisor may have been involved in an attempt to mislead Congress…”

A.P. ~

PARIS — Nicolas Sarkozy, a blunt and uncompromising pro-American conservative, was elected president of France Sunday with a mandate to chart a new course for an economically sluggish nation struggling to incorporate immigrants and their children.

Sarkozy defeated Socialist Ségolène Royal by 53-47 percent with 85 percent turnout, according to near-total results. It was a decisive victory for Sarkozy’s vision of freer markets and toughness on crime and immigration, over Royal’s gentler plan for preserving cherished welfare protections, including a 35-hour work week that Sarkozy called “absurd.”

“The people of France have chosen change,” Sarkozy told cheering supporters in a victory speech that sketched out a stronger global role for France and renewed partnership with the United States.

…Royal’s program seemed more in line with the policies pursued under the outgoing Jacques Chirac — who is from Sarkozy’s own party, the Union for a Popular Movement. Chirac, 74, held the presidency for 12 years but failed repeatedly to push through reforms.

…Royal, an unmarried mother of four, would have been France’s first female president. Her defeat could throw her party into disarray, with splits between those who say it must remain firm to its leftist traditions and others who want a shift to the political center like socialist parties elsewhere in Europe.

Il faut tout lire (Translatory hat-tip: Leanna Loomer :).

PS (Dept. of Fair Warnings :) ~ Next up: Eire, May 24. / Seems there’s somesort of a McKerfuffle :> over Bertie’s personal Finances. Picky, picky :). Ohhh it’s goin’ to be Fierce ;].

Queen Elizabeth II is coming to the White House, and President Bush is brushing up on his manners. Heh.

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
~ Robert Burns, “To A Mouse”

The Electoral Commission said it had begun “with immediate effect” an investigation into the Holyrood election voting chaos.

The polls have been hit by major problems with seven counts suspended and up to 100,000 ballot papers spoilt.

The Scotland Office said “serious technical failures” had delayed the announcement of some results.

Confusion about how to fill in ballot papers and problems with postal votes have also been blamed for the problems.

…Concerns have been raised about the decision to stage the Scottish Parliament and the local authority elections on the same day.

Voters were presented with two ballot papers and different voting systems.

The local authority ballot used the new Single Transferable Vote system.

…During his acceptance speech as the new MSP for the Gordon constituency, SNP leader Alex Salmond criticised the voting arrangements and also earlier problems with postal voting.

He said: “The postal voting arrangements for this election across Scotland were totally inadequate.

“It is also the case that the decision to conduct an STV election at the same time as a first-past-the-post ballot for the Scottish Parliament was deeply mistaken.

“As a direct result, tens of thousands of votes across Scotland have been discounted. That is totally unacceptable in a democratic society.”

Of course what we Have here (primarily) is: Voter Error. Exacerbated by an unfamiliar, and bifurcated, new balloting system. I.e., forget Birnam wood: ’tis Palm Beach County come to Dunsinane :}. Naturally the always-heroic election officials :> tried to Warn the Politicoes ahead of time, telling them ‘You know, there are ways you can Mitigate some of these predictable problems.’ But No. ;]

In a Presumably unrelated (??? :) election glitch, a disgruntled voter in Edinburgh bashed the ballot boxes with a Golf club and Ripped up the Voting Papers, causing “absolute bedlam” amid “scenes of terror”. (Actually, it occurs to me that if a few Palm Beach County oldsters had Protested at the Polls that way early on Election Day 2000, Al Gore might be President today. :)

More after the jump…

(more…)

In these Troubled Times, a little Nerding Out on Elections stuff always cheers me up :).

Accordingly, in sharply Ascending order of Significance :} ~

1. FRANCE will have a May 6 presidential Runoff, between a Rightie law-and-order champion nicknamed “Sarko”, and a Leftie lady named Ségolène who, in the Unlikely event that she wins, would be the nation’s first female president. / Ol’ Jacques Whatsisname is retiring. :)

2. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA will see an electionprocess Meltdown starting next February, if State Election Officials fail in their heroic effort to halt HAVA Act II ~ aka, Congress’s pell-mell rush to mandate Paper Trails To You (well, at least until they Meet Again :), because now they don’t trust the Computers which they had mandated in HAVA I so that the paper-punchcard-plagued 2000 could Never Happen Again.

3. NIGERIA’s April 21 election was a shameful Farce, both reflecting & exacerbating a continent-wide popular disillusionment with the functioning of African “democracy”.

AND, Lastly & most Importantly :) ~ even as Northern Ireland’s Brits-Out party, Sinn Fein, prepares to share power with the Unionists beginning May 8 ~

4. SCOTLAND holds an election May 3 for its devolved Parliament at Holyrood and the pro-independence Scottish National Party looks a good bet to Win!

From “The Scotsman”:

…With the election result expected to be extremely close and with only a tiny number of seats likely to separate Labour and the SNP, party managers know that their efforts in key swing seats between now and polling day could make the difference between victory and disaster.

…The Nationalists…used an interview with their most famous supporter, Sir Sean Connery, to launch an internet television station, SNPtv. Mr Salmond [the party leader] said: “These endorsements give us real momentum as we enter the final stages of this campaign. The SNP is moving forward, while Labour are stuck in a disastrous, negative campaign.”

…It is understood Labour’s internal polling shows its vote is hardening up in its traditional strongholds of west Scotland but there are potentially serious problems in parts of central Scotland and Fife.

The aim of the new phase of the Labour campaign is to shore up the Labour vote in these marginal areas, where all the main parties now agree the election will be won and lost…

I know you’ll all join me in watching the outcome with keen excitement a week from Thursday :).

(Footnote ~ not Altogether unrelatedly, in the Metaphorical sense at least, to a fiercely-fought Scottish election campaign: there’s a big Investigation of the recent unfortunate Spillover of more than 100 million litres of Effluent into the Firth of Forth. / Perhaps the probe will prove that the Party Platforms [colloquially called, Manifestoes ;] were just incapable of Containing it all. :)

PS: while I’m At It, here ~ gleefully anticipating the coming deconstruction of the United Kingdom via the Peaceful Politics of the Celts, that is :> ~ I might as well Throw in the Welsh branch of the operation for ye.

PPS: Hallooooo, Alasdair! :)

PPPS: Do understand, my apparent Britbashing is but a Pose. / Well. Mostly. :) Iow any Kingdom, however disunited ;}, whose national News service is still able to drily report, with nary a typographical Wink, that a chap who strolled into a London eatery and there proceeded to Detach his penis with a borrowed Kitchenknife, “was not thought to have any connection with the restaurant“, is Jolly Good by Me. No Connection with the restaurant, to be Sure. Thenkyewveddymuch, indeed. ;).

Note to self: when having a house party, do not invite all of MySpace.

In other news, I freakin’ love British people and their wonderfully British ways of saying things. “I wouldn’t say she was off her face, but she was quite merry”? LOL!

Leo Lewis, movie reviewer for the Times of London, liked what he saw at the world premiere of Spider-Man 3 yesterday in Tokyo, but he ends the review with a gripe:

Also disappointing is the inability of the director, Sam Raimi, to end the romp without a fleeting shot of the American flag. The Stars and Stripes just happens to be fluttering behind Spidey as he makes his triumphal return to honour, probity and good honest fist-fighting.

Andrew Hiller (who e-mailed me the review) responds: “Come up with your own superhero, you whining Tories.” Heh.

The Telegraph: “Relief at the freeing of the British sailors and Marines in Iran is tempered with dismay at the humiliation to which they and the country they serve have been subjected.” Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Malkin.)

Well, now, this is interesting:

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. The two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials. …

The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan. …

US officials in Washington subsequently claimed that the five Iranian officials they did seize, who have not been seen since, were “suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces”. This explanation never made much sense. No member of the US-led coalition has been killed in Arbil and there were no Sunni-Arab insurgents or Shia militiamen there.

The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President George Bush making an address to the nation on 10 January in which he claimed: “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.”

I’d like to know more about our reasons for targeting these men, our evidence against them, etc. But on the surface, I don’t think I like this very much. Certainly, we should be working aggressively to stop Iranian proxy attacks on our troops, but kidnapping high-ranking Iranian officials? Isn’t that how wars get started? Unless that’s what the Bush Administration wants… in which case, they should really have a chat with Congress before they commit a causus bellum…

P.S. Of course, Iranian proxy attacks on our troops, if proven, are themselves a causus bellum. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wise to go to war over it, though. And yet if we had successfully kidnapped a pair of high-ranking Iranian officials, that would have put the ball squarely in Iran’s court, in terms of whether to take the bellicose bait.

In case you can’t tell from my headline, I’m rather skeptical of this report:

The United States will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps “from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on April 6,” according to reports in the Russian media on Saturday.

According to Russian intelligence sources, the reports said, the US has devised a plan to attack several targets in Iran, and an assault could be carried out by launching missiles from fighter jets and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted a security official as saying, “Russian intelligence has information that the US Armed Forces stationed in the Persian Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a missile strike against Iranian territory.”

The Russian Defense Ministry rejected the claims of an imminent attack as “myths.” There was no immediate response from Washington.

More plausible is this report, which says Iran, Syria and Hezbollah are preparing for a possible U.S. attack on Iran this summer:

“Their preparation is defensive ahead of war … They fear a war initiated by the Americans because they understand that there might be an attack against Iran over the summer, but not by Israel,” [the head of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence] Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet.

In other news, a former FBI agent is missing in Iran:

Sources tell ABC News that the missing American was a former FBI agent, although they stressed that he was now a private citizen and that his trip to Iran was on “private business” and not associated with official U.S. matters.

State spokesman Sean McCormack said that the United States had been monitoring this case for several weeks and today had sent a message to Iran through diplomatic channels for more information on his whereabouts.

State Department officials say that Iran has yet to respond with any information.

Oh, and here’s the latest on the U.K.-Iran hostage standoff:

Iranian state radio reported that all 15 British sailors and marines held captive by Iran have confessed to illegally entering Iranian waters but, in an apparent softening in the dispute, said their statements would not air because of “positive changes” from Britain.

The softer tone was apparently mirrored in London, where an official said Britain has agreed to consider discussing with Iran how to avoid future disputes over contested waters in the Persian Gulf.

Britain, however, wants an unconditional release of the crew and is not “negotiating” for their freedom, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the crisis. Iran has demanded an apology from Britain as a condition for the release of the crew, who were seized March 23.

Britain contends the sailors were in Iraqi waters, however, and has said it would not apologize. It has also criticized the airing of footage of four of the sailors confessing so far, saying the statements appeared coerced and the broadcasting of captured military personnel violated international norms.