BRITAIN: Some 80 sitting Members of Parliament have announced that they will not be contesting the general election.
They range from high-profile household names and former cabinet ministers to relative newcomers who have barely made an impact beyond Westminster itself and, presumably, their own constituencies.
The new parliament will be bereft of some big hitters from the Margaret Thatcher era, particularly Michael Portillo, whom the former prime minister once saw as her natural successor.
More than 50 of those quitting are from the Labour benches, including the Father of the House - the longest continuously serving MP - Tam Dalyell, and the chirpy former sports minister, Tony Banks.
Others will disappear involuntarily and so the next parliament will contain well over 100 new names and faces for the Speaker, Michael Martin, to memorise.
On the Labour side, Mr Dalyell, who is fiercely anti the Iraq war and who entered the Commons in 1962, has been the most effective and successful campaigner of any MP in the last half of the 20th century, a thorn in the side of prime ministers of whatever persuasion.
Mr Banks, whose devastating invective has often enlivened Westminster, once described the portly Tory Nicholas Soames as "a one-man food mountain" and the Conservative leader William Hague as "a foetus".
The quiet Welshman, Denzil Davies, will be seen no more. He resigned as shadow defence secretary in a middle-of- the-night phone call to the Press Association.
Former cabinet ministers who seek pastures new are former culture secretary Chris Smith, who recently announced himself HIV positive; Jack Cunningham, who was once Tony Blair's dreaded "enforcer", Ann Taylor, one-time leader of the Commons, and Estelle Morris, who voluntarily quit as education secretary and later became Arts Minister.
Helen Liddell, a former Scottish secretary, is leaving to become Governor General of Australia, and Paul Boateng, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will depart to become High Commissioner of South Africa. Both these appointments may depend on a Labour victory at the election.
Other figures departing include John Hume and Séamus Mallon from the SDLP and the Rev Martin Smyth (UUP).