One final gaffe: 'President' Mitt's victory website goes live

A screen shot of Romney's President Elect website

A square-jawed "President-elect" Mitt Romney was pictured looking purposefully into the future yesterday, standing at a star-spangled lectern to declare: "I'm excited about our prospects as a nation. My priority is putting people back to work in America."

The triumphant scene came not from the former Republican candidate's dreams, but from his official "victory" website, which appears to have gone live accidentally as votes were being counted on Tuesday evening, thanks to a mistake by fat-fingered campaign staffers.

It was quickly removed, but not before the Political Wire blog had grabbed screenshots of several pages, in which Mr Romney promised to create a "smaller, simpler, smarter" America and offered a guide to his scheduled inauguration, on 20 January.

It was also revealed last night that Mitt Romney's campaign had planned to launch an eight-minute fireworks show over Boston Harbour had he won, The Boston Globe reports.