Above: Tony's treadmill and Tony moving out of Number 10 this morning.
Today Tony Blair resigned after 10 years as Prime Minister (there's no fixed term and Prime Ministers usually serve until they resign or die), and Gordon Brown is taking over. Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer (I think we'd just call it "Treasurer") and he was elected by his party in the House of Commons, but not by the people. As I understand it, he will continue to be Prime Minister for as long as his and Tony's party (Labour) stays in power in Parliament.
The process of handing over power to the new Prime Minister is interesting and quite quick. Tony gave last remarks in the House of Commons this morning (above, with Gordon Brown on the right), then went back to 10 Downing Street for a little bit to say goodbye to everyone. Then he and his family appeared outside, waved to the press, and got in their nice silver armored Jaguar to make the short drive to Buckingham Palace.
Helicopters followed the little convoy all the way to the Palace like O.J. Simpson, then Tony and his wife went into the Palace. Tony officially informed the Queen of his resignation and was back out in about 10 minutes. Then the Queen called up Gordon Brown, still hanging out at the Treasury, to invite him to be Prime Minister. As I write Britain has no Prime Minister, which is kind of fun.
Gordon Brown emerged from the Treasury and greeted all his staff, then got in a much cheaper car (a Vauxhall, which is like a Chevy) to drive to Buckingham Palace.
He is still in there, where he is formally accepting the job of Prime Minister from the Queen and chatting with her for a bit. When he emerges he will get the nice Jag to 10 Downing Street and move in.
You can read all about it here.
Fun stuff. Now we'd better get back to work on the move, ick. More about our new place soon.
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