Good morning readers. It’s the 22nd October and there are just 70 days left til the end of the year. Today is Derek Jacobi’s birthday, the 43rd anniversary of the first time an all-female group topped the charts in the States, and the 114th anniversary of a rather scary train-wreck at Paris’s Montparnasse station.

Train wreck at Montparnasse, 1895

2 Big Stories

Postal strike poll puts blame on government as union announces action

The Guardian reports a Yougov poll in which voters put the blame for postal strikes squarely on Gordon’s shoulders.

Gordon Brown’s handling of the Royal Mail strikes comes under strong criticism from the public and Labour backbenchers today, with a new poll showing most voters believe the government should get directly involved in the dispute and force management and unions to go to the conciliation service Acas.

Microsoft’s Bing signs landmark deals with Twitter and Facebook

Over in the Telegraph, we learn that a valuable deal has secured Twitter’s finances for another few whiles.

Microsoft’s recently revamped search engine, Bing, has signed a deal with Twitter and Facebook to add real-time updates from their users to its search results. It means people using Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, will soon be shown the most recent and popular results, rather than the just the most popular.

This almost at the same time as a tweet arrives telling me of Google getting into bed with Twitter too. And as if by magic at precisely the same time, my daily google alert email which runs a search on my own name for vanity and libel reasons pops into my inbox. And it includes a tweet I sent yesterday morning.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

Meanwhile over at Lib Dem Blogs, a number of people are talking about the 10:10 campaign and how it applies in their areas –

• Maureen Rigg – Carbon reductions on track in Stockton

At full council tonight the Tory Cabinet member had put a motion on the agenda supporting the 10:10 campaign. Sadly, she’d forgotten to arrange for someone to second it. We’d already decided that I was speaking on the motion and that we of course would support it. After all, all the Lib Dem group are already signed up to the campaign along with other members of the party all over the country. That gave me the chance to second the motion and to thank her for saving me the effort of writing it!

• Jane Watkinson – The ‘Special Relationship’ vs. European Fascists?

Meanwhile Jane is pondering anew the issue of the re-alignments of the Conservatives in Europe – this time from the perspective of UK/US relations. If we are to have a Tory government next year, how will Washington react if the UK is isolated in Brussels?

The question is clear for the Tories. They can either carry on with their stubborn denial attitude, which places them on the outskirts of all forms of decent society, or they can break their ties with the extremes and join the mainstream. Either way however, there will be major conflicts within the Tories.

These are just my quick picks for yesterday. Please let us know in the comments if you read anything great yesterday.