(This week in 1991: Labour tells lies, Bush throws away his arms, BT gives up on its mobile phone idea, Wales are glad they're not playing the whole of Samoa, and an unhappy parrot-owner goes to court. There are profiles of Stevie Wonder, Afrika Bambaata, Marc Cohn, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and songs from Shakespears Sister and Kiri Te Kanawa.)

After three months of tedium, our long nightmare is finally over. In Scotland, there's a new number one single, as Oceanic's Insanity takes over at the top. On the MRIB Network Chart, and on the ITV Chart Show there's a new number one, as the Scorpions' Wind of change displaces Bryan Adams performing (Everything I do) I do it for you. On the Gallup chart, sadly, there's no difference: Boring Bryan sells for a fourteenth, tooth-grindingly tedious week.

Speaking of tooth-grindingly tedious, Simply Red crash into the top of the albums chart with Stars, beating out Prince's Diamonds and Pearls, and Tina Tuner's singles collection Simply the Best. Bryan is down to number 4. New at 7 is IRS's collection The Best of REM, and The Pogues come in at 11 with their best-of. A single will be released later in the year. Bros's third and final album, Changing Faces, comes in at 18.

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We're sparing in our use of the Best of the Web category. Only the greatest posts deserve to be cast in stone, held up as shining examples of the standard to which we aspire, one day, to be as good at. The first nomination in yonks is James Masterton on the demise of the Bradford and Bingley.

Sometimes, there are cost savings that don't affect the quality of broadcasting, such as asking DJs to use newspaper websites rather than the print version. Sometimes, there are cost savings that really hurt broadcasting. Bad radio experience of the week has been on Chill. Owing to what we can reasonably call A Bit of a Cockup, the station has been playing its emergency CD. The same 70 minutes of chilled out bliss, every 70 minutes. What chillmeister Bern Leckie isn't saying is the reason why the emergency CD was left to play for most of the week: cost-cutting by GlobalWR. There used to be a system to alert engineers to the fact that the emergency CD was playing. It was disconnected because other stations needed it, leaving listeners to contact Mr. Chill to enquire what was happening.

There are, of course, cost savings that improve the quality of broadcasting. If GlobalWR was in the business of putting quality first, then it would have bought an extra alert system, and hang the cost. But the company is managed by Richard Park, and ever since he was cursed (and turned into a dog) in 2002's Fame Alchemy, every decision that Dogsby made has been wrong. This is yet another error from the long list.

Anyway, that wasn't our listening highlight of the last week. What was? An episode of CBC's Outfront; the ear-on-the-wall programme heard from people who had involvement with the Canadian railways. Noises Off: Trains is a thirteen-minute montage of train noises and reminiscenses.

We did rather enjoy Ian Hislop Goes Off the Rails (The Fourth Programme, Thursday), in which the satirist discussed the cuts proposed by Dr. Beeching. His methodology was unsound, his cuts perhaps more radical than was good for parts of the country outside the south-east, but we can't honestly say that it was necessary to keep all the lines open. Earnest Marples was a crooked road-builder (as in, he was corrupt and built roads, not that he built needlessly twisted roads, though he might be responsible for that as well.)

Chart of the Week

UK charts look the most interesting this week, Pink has the fastest ever climb to number 1, as So what storms up from number 38. It's Pink-by-numbers, nothing that should come as a surprise to anyone who's been following her career for the past decade. But it's a chirpy enough number, and it's got a nah-nah-nah hook, and it'll do to entertain as long as it lasts. Which is more than we can say for Oasis, The shock of the lightning can only enter at number 3, outsold by the Kings of Leon. It's the first time in six albums - since their 1994 debut - that the first single from a new Oasis album hasn't reached number 1.

(More: This week's chart in full)

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Peter Meddelsome is back! Back!! BACK!!! The politician who has had more comebacks than Status Quo and Frank Sinatra combined will be leaving his job as the UK's European Commissioner early, and taking up a post as business secretary. Rather than attempt to insert him back to the Commons, Meddelsome will lob his bouncers from Lords'. Readers will recall that Meddelsome was drummed out of the cabinet in 1998 after lying on his mortgage papers; and again in 2001 after some shady dealings involving Indian steel tycoons and pass-ports. Des Browne (ministry of war) retires, and is replaced by John Hutton (business). Ashton will be the new EU Commissioner, Royall replaces her as the captain at Lord's.

(More: Full details of the changes in the British cabinet.)

In summary, it feels like a cold winter's night off the coast of Newfoundland, not the time to be playing a game of musical deckchairs.

Real people, real politics

Debate 2, almost the same as debate 1, only Stephen Harpie was even less coherent - repeated photocopying loses quality... You don't care, or you're incompetent... Dion nicks Duceppe's laissez-faire-ist line from last night... Layton and May FTW on the economy... This is supposed to appeal to women?.. It's not the economy *or* the environment, it's both... Harpie tries to talk detail when everyone else is banging on about policy... Harpie doesn't so much hate the arts, as doesn't care about them... Still, at least he's proposing to maintain the tradition of free and fair elections, which is more than those comedians in the other room do. All of that is from the Macleans liveblog. We reckon that May was better than expected, Harpie got thumped by all sides, Dion and Layton had a side-brawl, and Duceppe wasn't.

We would like to observe the debate in full so that we can draw our own conclusions. Thanks to the unique way in which the BBC is funded, it refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Canadian elections. There's no coverage of either debate, no mention of Harpie nicking Howard's speech, and no election night coverage. There won't even be brief reports into the news bulletins on News 24 while counting is under way, because they'll be showing a presentation from Cbeebies involving a chipmunk and a builder. BBC for the lossing!

We're interested by Scribblelive, the company providing the backbone of Macleans' liveblogging. Canadian, so fewer privacy problems. No way to contribute without logging in, which is reasonable. But they're too cheap to have a login mechanism of their own, relying on Fay's Manuscript, Microshaft, or YADIS. Seeing as how Fay's Manuscript refuses to let us on, we couldn't trust Microshaft, and so distrust YADIS that we force it to break, we find ourselves ruled out entirely. Which is a shame. (A hint to the developers: work with Hyves. Hyves : Europe as FM : your neck of the wood.)

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The fourth party conference of the autumn is the Conservatives. After the inevitable video presentation, Louise Bagshawe (Corby, Young, Blonde) tells us about her children. What were we saying last week about not using kiddies as pawns? Then comes Adeela Shafi (Bristol East, Asian), wishing us a happy Eid and l'chaim for a happy new year. Where's Mario Abdullah-Levy when we need him? They both delivered speeches of about four minutes, presumably intended for the regional news, while it lasts.

(More: Discussion of Dave the Eager Young Space Cadet's third and final address to his fellow travellers)

We completely disagree with Nick Robinson, this didn't come across as an endorsement of The Blessed Virgin Margaret and all her policies, there was a lot of coded slagging of her errors, particularly the nod to Keynes. On the other hand, we still have absolutely no idea what the Space Cadets are proposing, other than pushing ahead with their policies even if there's opposition. That's not good.

Et maitenent, un mot pour les RDFchats, utilisé les concepts en espouseé sur Le Debat du Chefs. Nous avons une platforme, a dit David le Jeune Cadet Désireux de l'Espace. Le échouer! Ne faites pas!

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A run of short cuts to-day, beginning with The Dollar Crisis.

Building societies should never have gone public, says Andreas Whittam Smith.

Ann Pettifor argues that monetary policy was always a load of humbug, and that regulating interest rates would take the crunch away at a stroke. It's very simplistic, but the question is whether it would work in the short, medium, or long term. Was there a market in interest rates as we now understand them during the (relative) stability of the 1950s and 1960s?

Rupert Cornwell points out that the unelected Moron-in-chief has run out of power. Yes, we did get a sense of last Monday being an equivalent of 11 September 2001, just without the television pictures. Then we had a good night's sleep and concluded that we really shouldn't listen to Scotland at Ten after the sports bulletin.

Here's our take on the outcome. We've not run this past Mystic Mug. Government overpays for the sub-prime mortgages, resulting in inflation running at 10-20% for a few years, and (when the books add up circa 2020) booking a small loss. By 2010, the euro ends up worth about USD2, sterling winds up slightly below parity to the euro. Rest of the world reduces their new dollar lending, and bites the bullet of slow-to-zero growth for the next few years. By 2015, the main problem is the remnants of inflation. We reckon the UK is going to endure a tough few years, nowhere near as bad as the Morons, but not much better, especially when compared to Europe.

We're leaning towards a three-prong solution. Start with a bailout. It's not possible to change the current system overnight without mass carnage. Literally. Millions dead, the possibility of thermonuclear war, the kind of mess that we'd rather not consider. After the bailout, the government needs to suck money up like a sponge, so gradually stick taxes up from the top down. And, once things have calmed down a little, regulate like hell, and remember why these regulations are in place. If people had remembered why there were rules in place, this mess would be far less messy.

We reckon that continental Europe, by not lending to anyone who asked, will get through this without tremendous damage. The UK built up a culture of lending too freely. We can't help but feel that had we joined the euro in 2002, we would have had to rein in our lending. Whose mucky fingerprints are all over the UK's exclusion from the relative safe haven of the single currency? The Soup Dragon. Yet again, the folly of the UK's exclusion from the single currency is exposed.

Other matters

A domain name is not a gambling device, insists Language Log.

For lovers of battles where we don't care who loses so long as they both do, F*x Nooz -v- The Daily Hell.

The Canadian Election

And now for something completely different. Readers will remember how we deride Joe Photocopier for his habit of extracting chunks of Neil Kinnock's speeches and passing them off as his own work. We're now going to deride Stephen Harpie for exactly the same offence. Yes, dear reader, the Canadian prime minister is so useless that he can't even come up with his own brand of plagarism.

In this case, the argument is over a speech Mr. Harpie made in March 2003, while the neophyte leader of the Canadian Reform Alliance Party. His speech was almost indistinguishable from one delivered thirty-six hours earlier by John Howard, the ancien Australian prime minister. Both Mr. Howard and Mr. Harpie were arguing that their country should join in the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Now, he stands accused of letting his country be buried in international affairs, and of not speaking with an authentic Canadian voice, eh. Leading the criticism is The Warrior Princess, who has told Stephen Harpie to jump in the river and learn to swim.

You're a good father but you're a dangerous fascist.

Le Debate des Chefs took place in Ottawa in the early hours this morning, and we caught the opening exchanges in an unbilled repeat on TV5. We were a bit annoyed that the moderator wasn't Ainsley Haricots, but it was a chap called Stephan Bureau. The right sort of moderator: almost invisible.

Stephen Harpie (CRPA) defended his record, saying L'australie Le canada n'est pas les etats-unis. Stéphane Dion (PLC) said that his party would ask experts what the problem was. Elizabeth May (PV) was clearly hampered by the fact she's not a francophone, but held her own, particularly when discussing Mr. Harpie's favouritism for the oil sector. A far better performance than the notoriously anglophone Preston Manning ever gave.

Gilles Duceppe (BQ) said, M. Harpie est un laissez-faire-ist par M. Buisson, et nous peux viewer le grande disaster dans les etats-unis a ce moment. Jack Layton (NPD) also accused the Harpies of going in the wrong direction; he'll have gained from being visibly more relaxed than he was in the corresponding 2006 election, and more relaxed than M. Harpie.

We had to leave after about 45 minutes, so didn't get to see a question inviting the candidates to say something good about the person to their left. Mme. May drew the short straw of M. Harpie, but everyone managed the trick, and to plug themselves as well. Afghanistan also arose after we left, and M. Layton's credited with making the two main parties appear to have similar positions. Some have said that M. Harpie was long on rhetoric, short on promises he can put into action, and that he was visibly uncomfortable on the topic of crime.

We were tickled by Macleans's liveblog of the event, it certainly captured the spirit of what we saw, and adds some colour (that's colo*u*r) from people who know this a lot better than we do. See also: Cameron Holmstrom's unpicking of the event.

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This autumn's Archive Election (BBC Parliament, 10am-11pm, 3 October) is the 1964 edition. After three elections had returned the same party in power, it was looking tired and worn-out. Scandal had caused the resignation of a senior minister, and a respected prime minister had resigned and been replaced by an unpopular Scot. The opposition had a charismatic, modern leader, and they're widely expected to win the election by a comfortable majority - but there are questions as to whether their vote will hold up.

It's been said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. This election is quite clearly the tragedy bit, except that it's the most wonderful edge-of-the-seat ride all the way through, from the high farce at Billericay right through to the dash for the winning line. Richard Dimbleby - barely a year away from his final broadcast - is hosting his third Election Night programme, with analysis by David Butler, and commentary by Ian Trethowan. Robert McKenzie manhandles his giant swingometer to the delight of everyone. Robin Day carries the spears in a particularly memorable battle with George Brown. Cliff Michelmore fills in the awkward gaps, David Frost is urbane, and there's a guest disappearance from Nikita Krushchev. For our money, the best bit comes at the end - from about 8pm on the rerun, David Butler will be in full-on imperious mode, charting the remaining marginals that Labour could win. But will they? We'll have to see.

More recent results

Results from Bavaria:

CSU  92 (-32)
SPD  38 (- 3)
Free 21 (+21)
G    19 (+ 4)
FDP  16 (+16)
Left  0 (  0)

There are six öberhangmandates, all benefitting the CSU. Had this election been run under Welsh rules, the CSU would have had another majority.

It's a bad loss for the CSU, denied an overall majority in Bavaria for the first time since the war. The Socialists also lose a little ground. The Free Voters' Group are a conservative party, distinguished from the CSU by nothing much. The centrist Free Democrats return to the parliament, but the 4,5% of votes for the Links party are lost.

Results from Austria:

SPO 58 (- 9)
OVP 50 (-16)
FPO 35 (+14)
BZO 21 (+14)
Grn 19 (- 2)

A clear swing to the two fascist parties, showing dissent against the grand coalition of socialists (SPO) and conservatives (OVP). The FPO was Jorg Haider's party until he broke away to form the BZO, and the Greens are the Greens.

Finally, results from Belarus:

[BL results here]

Well, it appears that the election results in Belarus have been stolen. Indeed, the entire election in Belarus has been stolen. The parliamentary election in Belarus fell short of OSCE commitments for democratic elections. The vote was generally well conducted, but the process deteriorated considerably during the vote count as monitors were hindered from seeing the counting in 35% of cases. The report said several cases of deliberate falsification of results were observed.

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On the day after Thanksgiving, it's off to the polls to elect another federal government. As promised, here's everything you need to know about the only election that matters in North America this autumn. Everything, that is, apart from who you should vote for.

(More: If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well. A quick explanation of where the land lies, a discussion of the particular problems posed by the Canadian landscape, a huge list of marginals with appropriate colour-shading, and only then do we think about projecting this into seats. The CBC will tell you some of this, but won't have any little drawings of Peter Snow.)

The English-language leaders' debate takes place in the early hours of Friday morning. With its usual commitment to reflecting the wide range of views across the entirity of North America, the BBC won't be showing this serious debate at all. Instead, it will be showing an extended comedy skit featuring Tina Fey and Joe Photocopier. This Is Not News.

We'll revisit this projection nearer polling day, when we'll also advise those of you in Atlantic Canada on the ridings to watch for early clues. In the meantime, outsiders will wish to review CBC's coverage of the election, particularly the Minority Report comedy sketches, and the spoof email circulated recently.

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(More: Reform in Canada, freedom for Jackie Mann, fame for Steven Twigg, and change for Top of the Pops. We've profiles of Lil' Louis, Wolfsbane, Marc Almond, an explanation of the fast-similar-ballad career path, and a look at the politics of playlists. Plus songs by Airhead and Oceanic.)

Julian Lennon takes a top ten place, Saltwater rises three to 10. Zoe's down three to 9 with Sunshine on a rainy day, Sabrina Johnston holds at 8 with Peace, and Right Said Fred drop two to 7 with I'm too sexy. Rozalla rises one to 6 with Everybody's free (to feel good), and the other joint-fastest climber is The Scorpions, Wind of change rises 14 to number 5. There's no move at 4 for Erasure's Love to hate you., and Oceanic are a non-mover at number 3 with Insanity. There is no move at number 2 for Salt-n-Pepa's Let's talk about sex, which means that Bryan Adams really has done it. Thirteen weeks, three months, a quarter of a year at number one for (Everything I do) I do it for you. This is, of course, a record, as something over a million people will attest. Even in the gathering recession, this single becomes the first in six years, since Jennifer Rush's The power of love, to shift seven digits.

And look who's number one on the albums chart: Bryan Adams with his album Waking Up the Neighbours. The album includes his current single Can't stop this thing we started, and an extended version of some other song he's done recently. Dire Straits go back up one to 2, with Guns n' Roses dropping to 3 and 5, sandwiching Paul Young. The Pixies are new at 7 with Trompe le Monde, Primal Scream's Screamadelica enters at 8, The Cult arrive at 9 with Ceremony, and Status Quo invite us to Rock Til You Drop at 10.

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