02 May: British Elections
British Parliamentary elections take place this Thursday, and it's looking likely that Labour and Tony Blair will win a third term for Prime Minister, though perhaps not as resoundingly as in the past. The final total might even close a bit thanks to some last minute intrigue over Iraq (via today's International Herald Tribune):

The Sunday Times published details of a leaked document dating to July 2002 -- eight months before the Iraq war -- recording a meeting between Blair and his close advisers, in which he seemed to swing behind American arguments for regime change. As the war approached, Blair said frequently that the reason for war was to force Saddam Hussein to comply with United Nations resolutions calling on him to disarm. He denied that he was seeking regime change. Indeed, in a previously secret document made public last week, the British attorney general, Peter Goldsmith, said regime change could not be used as a justification for invasion. In July 2002, however, the leaked document summarised the prime minister's remarks as: "If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work." Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, reportedly described the case for war as "thin" because "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran," WMD being an abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction. Richard Dearlove, Britain's most senior intelligence officer, who had just returned from Washington was said to have concluded that the invasion was inevitable because "Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action." "Intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," he was quoted as saying. In a Sunday morning television interview, Blair did not deny that the meeting took place in July 2002, but recalled that "subsequent to that meeting we went the United Nations rout" seeking a resolution in November 2002, calling on the Iraqi regime to disarm.

At least according to this article, Blair doesn't deny the assertions that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around (US) policy." In my mind, that's another nail in the coffin to BushCo's assertion he did all he could before committing boots on the ground.

The Anglican church is also weighing in on the election, but is trying to be as non-partisan as possible (as compared to some US religious corners). Still, it's reaching out to undecided voters with nine prayers that outline what it considers some of the most important issues of the campaign (from the London Sunday Telegraph):

Taking their inspiration from Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the prayers, which are the first of their kind, celebrate the joys of parliamentary democracy but make telling pleas on issues such as crime and the environment that help explain why the Church of England is no longer referred to as "the Tory party of prayer." [...] The offering on the environment is a tirade against "human sin which disfigures the whole creation." It includes the lines: "heavenly Father, You have filled the world with beauty but our greed defaces all we touch: open our eyes to see Your gracious hand in all Your works, make our political leaders more mindful of the consequences of our environmental negligence, and teach us to be more responsible in our stewardship. Another prayer asks God to grand us "a land where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor... a land where different races and cultures live in tolerance and mutual respect."

Wow, that's radical!