Brit election

All manner of stuff in today's Guardian, including:

I spoke to several (foreign journalists) struck by the aggressiveness, even downright rudeness, of the exchanges between candidates and voters. "I have never in my life seen a head of government treated that way," one US correspondent told me, shocked by the mauling Tony Blair received from the (radio and TV broadcast) Question Time audience on Thursday. Calmly and coherently, people first booed Blair then told him, to his face, that he was a liar - something no American had ever done to George Bush.
The foreign press have been impressed by the degree of interrogation the British party leaders face each day. "Blair takes more questions in a morning than John Kerry took all year," says another US colleague, envious of the British daily grilling. The Americans particularly admire our ban on paid TV advertising, which forces candidates to slug it out on "free media": news programmes where they are challenged at every turn.

Rest of that story here.