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The news that millions of London taxpayers will get their council tax frozen next year is welcome.
However, the Labour-controlled councils planning the freeze should not be under the illusion that this will make much difference to their party's fortunes in next year's elections.
Aside from a national mood of disillusionment with the Government, Londoners have had to bear significant increases in council tax since 1997.
Certainly Labour's prospects in the capital do not look good. Even after its conference, Labour trails the Conservatives by 14 points, according to the most recent poll.
Last week, polling analysis by this newspaper suggested that up to 17 Labour MPs could lose London seats.
More importantly with regard to council tax, all the capital's boroughs have council elections next May.
Recent predictions are that the Tories could gain up to three councils, which would leave them in control of 16 out of London's 33 boroughs.
Voters will welcome council efforts to save money in a time of recession.
But nationally, the average Band D council tax almost doubled between 1997 and 2008, with above-inflation average increases every year.
That is thanks in large part to Gordon Brown's strategy while he was Chancellor of offloading ever-greater responsibilities - for example, part of increased spending on schools - on to local government.
Mr Brown's profligacy with councils' money should not obscure the good work done by some Labour councils, or their sincerity in trying to save money now that the public finances have hit a wall.
That may not save them from voters' anger with Mr Brown, though. More positively, the Labour councils' lead may well prompt Conservative-controlled town halls to follow suit. In hard times, that is a break we could all use.
President Blair
The prospect that Tony Blair could become EU President was one of the less-foreseeable results of the new EU constitution when it was signed by heads of government almost five years ago.
However, if Ireland votes yes to the Lisbon treaty in its referendum today, the way is likely to be clear for the new president to take up the post - perhaps within weeks.
Mr Blair is the clear favourite. That is likely to create most unwelcome problems for both Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
Mr Blair's presidency would be a victory for the view that the EU needs a high-profile figure to represent it on the world stage, as opposed to a more low-key politician.
Certainly Mr Blair has almost unrivalled international experience, and he remains a politician of rare talents. Yet he is divisive, too, the architect of the Iraq war.
For the Prime Minister it will be worse, with Mr Blair threatening to upstage him as Mr Brown's premiership splutters to a close.
Worse still for Cameron, if the Conservatives win they will face in Mr Blair an eloquent and powerful advocate of closer European unity, exercising power in a post whose very existence most Tories oppose.
Mr Cameron is sure to face demands from within his party for a retrospective referendum and British withdrawal from the new constitution, something he is in theory committed to; Mr Blair would be a formidable block to any such moves.
Opponents in all parties might once have hoped that only Mr Blair's grin would remain, Cheshire cat-like, after his premiership: they look likely to be proved wrong.
Burma's heroine
The rejection by a Burmese court of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's appeal against her recent conviction was predictable.
She was sentenced in August to have her already-lengthy house arrest extended by a further 18 months, thereby keeping her out of elections scheduled for next year.
But Aung San Suu Kyi's example still shines on, even from detention: against her courage, Burma's regime cannot hold on to power for ever.
