Good morning and welcome to October 29th. Today is the anniversary of the first performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the birthday of Boswell, the biographer of Samuel L Jackson, and the anniversary of the death of Sir Walter Raleigh (he was executed – I didn’t know that.)

It’s also the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which first set up a Constitution for Europe.

2 Big Stories

The postal strike is on
Read all about it on the Times, the Telegraph and the Guardian:

Both sides blamed each other after three days of talks mediated by the TUC collapsed without a deal being reached. As late as evening there had still been some hope that this week’s strike action could be called off to relieve the pressure on Royal Mail.

Tony Blair set to stand for EU presidency ‘if job is big enough’

The Times “has learnt” from “friends” of Mr Blair… oh, read it yourself:

Tony Blair will stand for the presidency of the European Union if its leaders agree that the role is a substantial one requiring clout on the world stage, The Times has learnt. The former Prime Minister would give up his lucrative commercial interests for a job that would allow him to “make a difference” for Europe, friends say.

Our poll on the issue is currently running – and is not looking good for Mr Blair’s interests in the role of president of the Council of Ministers.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

• Alex Wilcock: Ex-Liberal Democrats in the News (including two you may not have spotted)

Eagle-eyed Alex reminds us of the Liberal Democrat histories of two people in the public eye, including maligned Conservative PPC Elizabeth Truss:

[…]in around 1993, she was a self-styled radical Liberal Democrat who kept attacking me when I was Chair of the Liberal Democrat Youth and Students because I wasn’t left-wing enough, and whom I once held a meeting with to try and get her to work with anyone else in the organisation because she was a complete and utter egomaniac pain in the backside incapable of working in a team [. …] I hope she’s as well-loved and effective a teambuilder for the Tories as she was in the Liberal Democrats.

Ouch.

• One Governator, three links

Mark Reckons, Jonathan Calder and Paul Walters are all considering a particularly fine bit of writing when California Governor Schwarzenegger refused to sign a bill sent to him by the state assembly. His refusal is couched in what first looks like unoffensive text. A closer inspection reveals a profane acrostic.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post a comment sharing them with us all.