The electors of Voinestl in Romania have voted to re-elect a dead man as their mayor. Neculai Ivascu - who led Voinesti for almost two decades - died from a liver disease on Sunday, too late to cancel the contest. But the village's loyal residents still gave him 23 more votes than his rival, Gheorghe Dobrescu of the ruling National Liberal Party.

In a controversial decision, the electoral commission declared the runner-up and rival Mr Dobrescu the winner. Neculai Ivascu's party, the opposition Social Democrat Party, has said it will contest the decision.

The election of a corpse as mayor of Voinesti is not unprecedented of course. We only need to cast our mind back to the US elections in 2000 when the voters of Missouri had the option of electing John Ashcroft, the incumbent senator, or the late Mel Carnahan. Aschroft/dead man? Dead man/Ashcroft? The voters of Missouri chose not to elect the candidate with a pulse....

Brown Happy! Campbell relieved? Cameron gloomy?

Gordon Brown will be relieved this morning as Labour has held both Sedgefield and Ealing Southall, but with reduced majorities. Labour won Sedgefield, the seat formerly held by Tony Blair, with a majority of just under 7,000 compared to one of over 18,000 at the general election. In Ealing Southall, Labour’s majority fell from over 11,000 to 5,000.

In both seats there were substantial swings to the Liberal Democrats. This result should quell some of the recent calls for Menzies Campbell to stand down as the Lib Dem leader.

For Cameron and the Tories (or David Cameron’s Conservatives, however, it was a poor night. Despite putting an awful lot of resources into the Ealing Southall campaign, their share of the vote was little different to the general election (oh dear!). If I could be bothered I would take a look at some Tory blogs to see how their performance has been spun.. I would imagine they are accentuating the positive. Well Tony Lit did wear some smashing ties....