America’s longest-serving Congressman, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, has died at the age of 92. The doyen of Capitol Hill (over 20 thousand days of service in almost 57 years of political activity) had been suffering from various health problems over the last few years and had been hospitalised three times in 2009. His death – which follows that of Edward Kennedy last August – means that the US Senate has lost its last great charismatic figure, although this will not serve to tip the internal balance. .