Will the Blair family be watching today’s 14 hour marathon?

The BBC Parliament channel is again devoting a bank holiday Monday to a full repeat of the corporation’s coverage of a past general election.

So if you are not completely sick of election results programmes following days of intensive coverage sit back and follow today’s 14 hour marathon broadcast of the dramatic events of May 1-2 1997 when the young man who had become the Labour member for Sedgefield 14 years earlier led his party to a dramatic victory.

The programme starts at 9am and is being broadcast on-line here as well as on digital television.

Assuming that everything goes to plan this should be a good start to what promises to be a landmark week in the political career of an extraordinary politician who took his party to three successive general election victories.

I have found these re-runs absolutely riveting and a great way of understanding how things looked at the time. I’m also looking forward to watching for the first time the famous “Portillo moment” when the ex-Tory cabinet minister was defeated in Enfield.

The PBC masthead. Yesterday’s French election and the Labour changes mean that I am having to revise the site masthead. Any thoughts on who should be included would be most welcome.

Out will go, of course, Tony Blair, Royal, Sarkorzy, Miliband and possibly Assistant Commander Yates. The question is who should replace them?

We have been without a Lib Dem since the start of the year – perhaps the likely front-runners in the next leadership race, Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, should be given places? We also need to reflect the race for the Republican nomination for next year’s White House battle.

Mike Smithson