David Cameron: a lounge lizard for the digital age

It used to be said of the singer Bryan Ferry in his later, post Roxy Music years, that he exactly personified the character of a 'lounge lizard': immaculately groomed, fey and effete, spending his days lying listlessly on a chaise longue, flicking through the latest edition of Country Life, surfacing once every few years to produce an album of crooning self-pity. Apparently this image used to annoy Mr. Ferry enormously, though God alone knows why when he seemed to spend his entire life cultivating such a persona. It was certainly distressing to those of us who remember the avant-guarde vitality of Roxy Music.

I was reminded of Mr. Ferry when I heard that our dearly beloved PM, Mr. Cameron, spent an apparently 'crazy' amount of time playing a game called "Fruit Ninja" on his iPad. The suggestion was rapidly squashed by his PR flunkies, and it's easy to see why.

You can just see it can't you? David Cameron, languidly reclining on his sofa in his Oxfordshire home. The issue of Country Life replaced by an iPad (perhaps there isn't an app for that): a lounge lizard for a digital age. Stylishly presented but essential vacuous, surfacing once in a which to make speech then going back to dozing in the midday heat. And just like Mr. Ferry, his declining fan base looks on in sadness and distress, wondering what happened to the vitality and original thinking of the band he leads, forced to look back with nostalgia and think of better times.

Royal Navy turf Spaniards out of Gibraltarian waters

The Royal Gibraltar Police and a Royal Navy ship had to evict a number of Spanish fishing boats and police cruisers from Gibraltarian waters today.

The Spaniards are still trying to bully the people of Gibraltar into submission over Spain's spurious claims to Gibraltar with unacceptable delays at border crossings and now incursions into Gibraltarian waters.

Today's stand-off was down to Spanish fishermen illegally fishing off Gibraltar and the Spanish police boats that went along to "protect" them.  Spain disputes the UK's claim to waters up to 3 miles off the coast of Gibraltar and fishermen and the Spanish police have made numerous incursions into Gibraltar's territorial waters.

The situation has been confused somewhat by the EU's refusal to condemn Spain's bullying of Gibraltarians and in allowing Spain to claim jurisdiction over all Gibraltarian waters outside the harbour under EU environmental protection laws.

When all this kicked off in the latter half of 2009, Nigel Farage told us that UKIP was committed to Gibraltar's right to self-determination and quite unequivocally said that Spain needs to stick to what it has previously agreed on the rights of Gibraltarians.  The Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, described Spain's actions as an "obviously carefully premeditated challenge to our indisputable sovereignty, jurisdiction and control of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters and our airspace".

What is the British government's response to this act of war?  The EU Minister, David Lidington, was going to phone the Gibraltarian First Minister today and reassure him of the British government's position and Wee Willy Vague will tell his Spanish counterpart that Gibraltar is ours so stop being so mean.  Scary stuff.  Like being menaced by a hamster.

It's time we had a UKIP Gibraltar.  They vote in EU elections as part of the south west of England and as the only party that opposes the EU which causes so many of Gibraltar's problems, UKIP should be able to establish itself quite effectively as a political force on the rock.

Farage: No deal offered to anyone

Nigel Farage has released the following statement following claims in the Spectator that he has offered to merge UKIP with the Tories or to stand candidates on a joint ticket at the next election:

Dear UKIP Member

When was the last time you saw
Cast Iron Dave™ crack a smile?

In this week's Spectator, there is an article by James Forsyth talking about potential deals between UKIP and Conservatives. This has already been followed up by the Press Association, Dan Hannan and Conservative Home.

I think it is important to point out that at no stage have I offered a deal, or any intention to stand down, to anyone.

My plans are clear: that we must contest more local election seats than ever before, and prepare to stand everywhere at the next General Election.

Many Conservative Associations now fear that an alliance with the Liberal Democrats could be put to the electorate next time; an alliance which would see both parties' names appearing on the ballot paper under single candidate. Indeed, electoral law has been changed to allow such an arrangement.

As David Cameron has already spoken of a 'Conservative-led' government after 2015, their fears are well founded. The vast majority of Conservative Associations would prefer an alliance with UKIP.

My own view is that any such alliance could only be contemplated after a promise to give the country a fair In-Out EU referendum had been made an unbreakable Manifesto pledge.

For that to happen, we would need to pose an even greater electoral threat than at present.

Please remember that this whole debate is only happening because of your hard work and the very solid recent local election results.

We must prepare for the 2013 County Council elections now.

Yours sincerely, Nigel Farage.

Some members have been quite vocal about the Spectator's claims but there are several reasons why it just wasn't plausible, primary of which is that Nigel Farage has no authority to enter into this type of agreement without a vote of the membership - indeed, nobody in the party has the authority to do so without a mandate from the membership.

There is simply no appetite in the party for a coalition or any type of alliance with the Tories and why should there be?  Other than being notionally right of centre and broadly conservative, what else do the two have in common?  Let's do a quick comparison of UKIP and Tory policy on key issues:

	UKIP	Tory
EU	Like the majority of the population, want the UK to leave the EU	Like the majority of politicians, wants the UK to be integrated even further into the EU
Immigration	Freeze economic immigration for 5 years then introduce points-based system for everyone wanting to move here	Open borders to anyone and everyone who wants to move here, anyone from EU entitled to social housing and benefits
Defence	Properly funded military capable of defending our interests at home and abroad	Sharing an aircraft carrier with the French
Economy	Shrink government as much as possible, bring £1tr public sector pensions into line with private sector, introduce flat tax and raise threshold to take low paid out of the tax system altogether	More government, more tax
Education	Expand the grammar school system so children get an education suited to their needs and abilities, restore status of universities to institutions providing top quality higher education in useful subjects to people who will make use of it	Continue the war against academic selection forcing children who will benefit most from a vocational education to persist in a one-size-fits all education system, suffering humiliation and disenchantment in the process
Crime	Life means life, punish criminals properly, more police on the streets, withdraw from the EU Arrest Warrant, put the rights of victims first	Soft on crime, soft on punishment, cut police budgets and officers
Health	Provide NHS vouchers for those who prefer to see a doctor privately, free opticians and dentists on the NHS, put matrons back in charge of wards	Keep throwing more and more money at a failing system

I see very little common ground there on any of the big issues.  There is plenty of common ground with most ordinary members of the Conservative Party but they don't make policy and have proven to be either incapable or unwilling to unseat the idiots at the top that do.

UKIP is a political party - the number three party in the UK and the second largest UK party in the EU Parliament.  We are not a Tory pressure group, nor are we a eurosceptic think tank or campaign.  UKIP had the largest and most comprehensive manifesto of the four main parties at the last election, putting the policy books of the LibLabCon parties to shame.  We are here to win elections, not force the Tories or Labour into holding a referendum on the EU by picking off their councillors, MPs and MEPs one by one or by attracting large numbers of their members to UKIP.  We don't need to form a coalition with the Tories because we are capable of doing what we need to do ourselves.  We certainly don't need to form an alliance with the Tories or stand joint candidates because we are strong enough in our own right.

It is a misconception that all UKIPpers are disaffected Tories and that if Cameron promised a referendum on membership of the EU then we would all "come home" to the Conservative Party.  Firstly, who would believe him if he did promise a referendum?  He gave a Cast Iron Guarantee™ of a referendum on the EU Constitution and went back on that promise.  The public forced a parliamentary vote on membership of the EU through a petition and he whipped his MPs to vote it down and deny us a referendum.  What reason is there to believe that we would get a referendum if he promised one or that the questions wouldn't be rigged to provide the "right" answer?

Secondly, we are not all disaffected Tories.  In fact, the youth wing of UKIP - Young Independence - is growing at a fair old rate of knots and a sizeable proportion of these new members aren't old enough to have belonged to any other political party.  Others (myself included) have never even voted Tory, let alone been members of the Conservative Party.  It's like listening to the BNP talk about sending immigrants "home" when they were born here and have only ever left the country for a fortnight's holiday on the Costa del Sol.  Just because someone's got brown skin doesn't mean England isn't home and just because someone is a member of UKIP doesn't mean the Conservative Party is their natural home.

Conservative MEP, Dan Hannan, has written in his Telegraph column today suggesting that UKIP should merge with the Tories and stand joint candidates in the next election.  I think all his points have pretty much been covered off above but if they haven't, the hundreds of comments largely telling him either that he's come up with the best plan to save the Tories or to bog off, UKIP wouldn't touch the Tories with a barge pole, should do.

Only UKIP has the answers to our problems

Another day, another YouGov opinion poll and of course UKIP is in front of the Lib Dems yet again.

This one is quite interesting - only 28% of people who voted Lib Dem in the last election said they would vote Lib Dem again.  Seven out of 10 traditional Lib Dem voters have abandoned the party and 8% of people who voted Lib Dem in the last election said they'd vote UKIP!

The most important issues, according to respondents, that are facing the country right now are the economy, immigration, the EU, health, pensions, crime, tax and education in that order.

UKIP is the only party with sustainable and achievable economic policies because it is the only party that wouldn't be hamstrung by EU rules and targets and the massive drain on our resources that comes from membership of the EU.

UKIP is the only party that will freeze economic immigration for 5 years so that people already living here (be they newly arrived immigrants or descendants of Alfred the Great) can fill job vacancies and move into newly available homes and that will introduce a points-based system for every person who wants to come and live here (this obviously doesn't apply to asylum seekers who need to live here, not want to).

UKIP is the only party which will allow patients to use NHS vouchers with private health providers, introduce elected health boards, bring back free NHS opticians and dentists and put matrons back in charge of wards.

UKIP is the only party that will bring the £1tr public sector pensions into line with private sector pensions, withdraw from the EU common pensions fund and reduce tax rebates on pension contributions for high earners to help fund increases in the state pension.

UKIP is the only party that will put the rights of victims before those of criminals, establish elected police boards, abolish the Human rights Act (which has very little to do with human rights), increase prison places and withdraw from the EU Arrest Warrant that has already seen so many miscarriages of justice.

UKIP is the only party that will introduce a flat tax along with an increased tax allowance to take most low-paid workers out of the tax system altogether.

UKIP is the only party that will bring back the grammar school to allow academically able children to get a more academic education and less academically able children to get a more vocation education rather than bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator.

UKIP is the only party that actually has an answer to the issues that people put the most importance on, it's no wonder that people are abandoning the three old parties for UKIP and no wonder the increasingly extreme left wing Lib Dems are haemorrhaging supporters.

EU Court orders British government to allow prisoner votes

The EU Court of Human Rights has ruled that the blanket ban on prisoners voting is a breach of their human rights and the British government must allow some prisoners to vote.

The court has ruled that Italy can legally deprive prisoners of the right to vote because it's not a blanket ban but that the British government's ban on voting is illegal because there are no exceptions.  It has given the British government 6 months to change the law to allow prisoners to vote.

The policy director of Liberty, Isabella Sankey, has criticised the ban on prisoners voting and seems to suggest that because it is an old law (an "irrational Victorian law) then it must automatically be wrong.  Liberty, of course, campaigns for the protection of the fundamental human rights English people have possessed since the writ of Habeas Corpus was first used in the 1100's.  Are they suggesting that Habeas Corpus, Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights should be be repealed because they're old?

If you commit a serious crime you will (or more accurately these days, may) be punished with the temporary suspension of certain rights that society has, over the course of centuries, decided should only be enjoyed by those who respect the law.  These rights include the right to liberty and the right to vote.  If you can't live in a way that the rest of society finds acceptable then why should you have a say in who makes the laws to (theoretically at least) ensure the population behaves in a way that society deems acceptable?

Membership of the EU requires submission to the primacy of the EU Court of Human Rights and the EU Court of Justice.  Technically they aren't organs of the EU state but in all practical terms they are merely arms of the EU and EC, there to ensure that EU laws are adhered to by member states.

UKIP ahead of the Lib Dems once again in YouGov poll

UKIP is yet again ahead of the Lib Dems in the latest YouGov daily poll for the Sun.

Labour are still way out ahead on 44%, the Tories limping in to second with 32%, UKIP are third (as usual) with 8% and the Lib Dems are fourth with 7%.

YouGov are slowly getting their act together where UKIP is concerned.  UKIP didn't even get a mention in their headline, even if it was in third place and now the party is mentioned in the headlines (most of the time).  UKIP was in brackets at the end of the headline as if it was an afterthought or a statistical anomaly and now the brackets have been dropped.  Next thing they need to do is stop putting the fourth placed party (Lib Dems) in front of the third placed party (UKIP) followed by taking UKIP out of the "other" parties and offering it as an option alongside the three old parties.

We are still plugging away at the CEO of YouGov to get him to sort out this ridiculous manipulation of the political system and hope he will see sense soon.  There is no three party system in the UK any more and there won't be a three party system again unless the Lib Dem decline proves to be terminal.  YouGov is supposed to be in the business of predicting election results, not trying to unduly influence them by talking down UKIP and talking up the LibLabCon.

UKIP 4% clear of Lib Dems in Survation poll

UKIP received another polling boost yesterday with the release of a Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday.

Survation differs from other opinion pollsters in mentioning UKIP alongside the three old parties and has so far proven to be more accurate at predicting UKIP's performance than other polling companies as a result.

The poll shows that UKIP is well out in front of the Lib Dems and creeping up on the Tories.  Labour was in the lead with 36.6%, the Tories were second with 25.8%, UKIP third on 11.5% and some minority party called the Lib Dems on 7.4%.

Almost 6 out of 10 of the people Survation surveyed think Greece should abandon the €uro and return to the drachma and that Germany should not fund another Greek bailout.  More than three quarters of those surveyed think Greece will leave the €uro.  Almost 4 in 10 think the €urozone will break up (nearly 5 in 10 say it won't) and 4 in 10 think the EU would be better off if it happened (3 in 10 think it would be worse).  4 in 10 think the UK would be better off if the €urozone breaks up whilst 3 in 10 think we would be worse off.  Half of people asked think that the EU will survive a break-up of the €urozone.

Opinion is split on the subject of the UK leaving the EU with 45.4% saying no and 43.8% saying yes whilst 10.8% don't know.  This is much closer than other polls which usually show a clear majority in favour of leaving.  Looking at the regional split, it is most likely London and Scotland skewing the figures.  It's a shame Survation didn't extend their policy of including UKIP with the three old parties to the respective party leaders because it would have been interesting to see how Nigel Farage compares to the three pro-EU leaders - I suspect that he would have come out top in most of the questions.

The Crumbling Pillars of the Political Class

Our good friend Dan Hannan is at it yet again, exhorting some kind of pact or merger between UKIP and the Tories.

The obvious unworldliness of it hardly bears examination:  exactly how, after slandering UKIP in the most offensive terms as 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists', would Cameron explain away a pact without it being depicted as a totally humiliating climbdown? And wouldn't such a pact risk - horror of horrors - 'contaminating' the Tory brand amongst Dave's  achingly fashionable friends? More to the point, why would UKIP want to risk being contaminated by the taint of Toryism?

Be that as it may, Hannan's thinking is based on a flawed analysis, namely that the emerging split in the Right of British politics (essentially the de-merging of the classical Liberal and Tory traditions) would give the Left a more or less permanent monopoly on power.

This analysis wholly ignores the likely effect the eclipse of Toryism would have on the Left of British politics, namely the collapse of the anti-Tory tribal Labour vote.

The Right like to rant and rail that the Tories have betrayed their core constituency - and so they have - but that is nothing to the betrayal that the Labour Party has enacted on the indigenous working class. It was once famously said of the  Labour Party that it  'owed more to Methodism than it did to Marx', representing as it did socially conservative working class voters who believed in a measure of economic redistribution. Dominated as it now is by decidedly non-Methodist middle-class Guardianistas,  the Labour Party has followed a social agenda in recent years which could hardly be more inimical to working class interests, fuelling mass immigration, family breakdown and the destruction of national identity. Consequently a large section of what were once Labour's natural supporters simply support the party out of tribal hatred of the Tories, or fail to vote at all.

The journalist Peter Hitchens, no friend of UKIP, nevertheless came up with an outstanding metaphor to describe the current party political situation: he likened the Labour and Tory parties to a pair of crumbling pillars, each holding each other up by virtue of the hatred each set of core supporters had for the other.  Of the two pillars, the Labour Party is perhaps in the stronger position, having as a backstop the powerful vested interests of the public sector unions. Nonetheless, collapse of one pillar would inevitably lead to collapse of the other.

It is now possible to see the circumstances for such a collapse coming into view: if UKIP continue to chip away at Tory support to the extent that the Conservative Party loses the next general election badly, the perception may gain ground amongst working class supporters that a Tory majority government is no longer to be feared, with the result that a vote for the Labour Party is no longer essential.

Waiting in the wings to capitalise is the newly formed alliance between the sectarian English Defence League and British Freedom Party, standing on an unashamedly politically-incorrect, anti-Islamic, patriotic, pro-Christian platform which includes withdrawal from the European Union. Whatever one thinks of the EDL and BFP, they are not as heavily tarred with the charge of racism as the BNP is, and are thus more likely to make significant inroads into Labour's bedrock support.

As the situation in Europe deteriorates by the hour and it becomes clear that our rotten Political Class lack the inclination, the courage or the foresight to deal with what could rapidly spiral down into a truly catastrophic situation, we could be on the verge of the greatest re-alignment of British politics since the 'Strange Death of Liberal England' in the early 20th Century.

So, Dan, thank you all the same, but please don't ask again, as refusal often offends. In the not too distant future, marriage with you Tories would likely prove, in the words of Marshall Petain, "fusion with a corpse".

ComRes puts UKIP on 7%

A ComRes poll has UKIP on 7% amongst those who have indicated that they intend to vote with the Lib Dems on 9%.

Interestingly, while the 26% of traditional Conservative voters saying they would vote UKIP if there were a general election tomorrow is almost a given nowadays, a surprisingly high 14% of Lib Dem and 11% of Labour voters said they too would vote UKIP.

One interesting and quite odd statistic is that if voting was a legal requirement, 6% would vote UKIP or Lib Dem but 7% would vote Green.  If voting was voluntary, only 2% would vote Green which would suggest that either environmentalism doesn't motivate people enough to actually go out and vote for it or the left wing extremism that underpins the Green Party's wide manifesto is a big turn off.

UKIP and the Greens are the parties most likely to attract floating or protest voters according to the question "who would you seriously consider voting for at a general election".  13% of respondents said they would seriously consider voting UKIP or Lib Dem while only 10% said Lib Dem and 9% said Labour or Conservative.

The most surprising statistic of all is that 7% of people who consider themselves to be UKIP think leaving the EU would be bad for jobs and trade and 3% would vote to stay in the EU in a referendum and 6% don't know.  UKIP is clearly attracting people who are soft on the EU but support UKIP's other policies enough to vote for the party.  If a referendum were held on leaving the EU, 46% of people would vote to leave, 30% would vote to stay in and 24% are undecided.

The Euro: Irresistable force meets immovable object

With Greece predicted by almost everyone to be exiting the Euro soon due to the irresistable forces of global capitalism, it is worth considering the reason for why it has remained for so long, and why the European Establishment has been so slow to retreat from it's impossible position. (Note that the term 'European Establishment' is not quite the same as the European Union, courtesy of the lunatic decision to allow Christine Lagarde to become head of the IMF.)

A good deal of the reason is, as many commentators have pointed out,  the emotional attachment the European Establishment have to the Euro as a totem of the 'inevitable' flow of history towards European unity. The fear that, once that illusion is shattered, then the whole project (and their careers) will lie in ruins is plainly a very powerful one.

However, there is another reason thats bears attention: the immovable object of German culture.

Anyone who has worked has the good fortune to work in Germany will find much to admire in the Germanic way of doing things: notably the meticulous attention to detail in planning and execution, as well as the steely psychological toughness to see things through over the long term.  As the recent BBC documentary 'Eurocrash' by Robert Peston explored,  the German nation  coped magnificently with reunification through collective discipline and sacrifice over a period of 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's doubtful that any other European nation could have achieved such a success given such huge difficulties. Certainly we in Britain, faced with our own dire economic problems and a pathetically cowardly government response, can only envy them their unity of purpose as well as their willpower.

However, all cultures have weaknesses, and the EU is now being smashed on the anvil on that same German Will. The German mentality is to plan meticulously for every eventuality, then execute 'The Plan'. However, once 'The Plan' is underway, it is essentially on railway tracks and no deviation from it can be countenanced. Difficulties will be bulldozed aside and it will be seen through, come what may. Very often this approach works, but if unforeseen and insurmountable circumstances arise, Germans often find abandonment of the held position virtually impossible.  Thus mistake is compounded and re-compounded by intransigence until total disaster overtakes it. In a recent speech, Angela Merkel showed this absolutist mentality in all it's hubris.

"If the euro fails, Europe fails. That must not happen."

But as we all know, the problem for Merkel is that Germanic stubborness to make the Euro work only has a chance of success if reflationary monetary policies are pursued and a fiscal union created between the member states. That, of course, brings the only policy likely to save the Euro in collision with  the equally tough Germanic insistence on sound money. Thus we have the grotesque situation that, irrespective of a forced Greek exit, Germany will almost certainly continue to compound it's errors and to defend the Euro with savage deflationary policies until the last peripheral European economy is totally smashed.

And smashed is not too dramatic an expression. We often tire in the media of hearing sensationalist rhetoric from politicians or commentators  about economies 'collapsing' or being 'destroyed' by this or that government policy, and Armageddon (almost) always fails to arrive. But for once the horrible  reality really seems to be matching the hype. If reports are to be believed, parts of Greece and Spain are returning to a pre-modern barter-based economy. Germany, in the meantime, continues to prosper mightily as the greatest export engine the world has ever known on the back of a cheap Euro.

As Nigel Farage has repeatedly warned, Cassandra-like,  some European states may be headed for civil war or revolution. Certainly, some of them seem to be leaving the developed world.

And they said the EU would guarantee European peace and prosperity in our time.

UKIP pull 2% clear of Lib Dems in YouGov poll

UKIP has pulled 2% clear of the Lib Dems in the latest YouGov daily poll which puts Labour on 44%, the Tories on 31%, UKIP on 9% and the Lib Dems on 7%.

YouGov still puts UKIP's result in brackets at the end of their headline voting intention as if it's an afterthought or also-ran and lumps the party in with the "others" when asking polling.  We're still working on them to get them to take UKIP seriously but it's really getting quite ridiculous.  UKIP is consistently polling between 1% behind and 2% ahead of the Lib Dems - the junior party of the coalition - yet YouGov still treats the party as some sort of statistical anomaly.

Had the last local elections been held under some form of PR, it is estimated that UKIP could have won around 400 seats yet because of the antiquated First Past the Post system we use, we ended up with 9.

Anyway, the regional breakdown is quite interesting.  Remember that the sample sizes are way too low to be even vaguely accurate and they don't have any weighting applied to the them but they are useful for establishing a trend.  In London the Lib Dems are on 5% and UKIP on 3%, whilst in Scotland the Lib Dems are on 4% and UKIP on 2%.  But those are the only two polling regions where the Lib Dems are ahead of UKIP.  In the north of England both are level on 7%, in the south of England (excluding London) UKIP is on 12% with the Lib Dems on 9% but in the midlands/Wales polling region UKIP is on 12% witht he Lib Dems on just 7%.  UKIP support in the midlands/Wales polling region is traditionally suppressed because Wales and the midlands are like chalk and cheese - different country, different political system, different government and of course like Scotland, Wales is ideologically socialist - so the gap (albeit taken with a pinch of salt) probably belies an even bigger gulf between the two.

UKIP councillor becomes mayor of Preesall

UKIP Councillor, Chris Lamb, has been appointed Mayor of Preesall, Lancashire.

Chris is a very busy man in the local community and has been a councillor since 2008.  I'm sure he'll make an excellent mayor and it's great to see a fellow UKIPper that can do sign language - maybe we'll start a group for signing UKIPpers!

Congratulations Chris.

Greece president proposes new "technocrat" government

Attempts by the three main parties in Greece have failed to produce a coalition, thanks largely to the unwillingness of all three to move on their position on the EU's austerity demands.

Syriza refuses to back down from its opposition to EU austerity whilst New Democracy and Pasok refuse to back down from their support for it.  The parties are split 151-149 in opposition to the EU's austerity measures but that includes Golden Dawn which none of the other parties will deal with.

The Greek President has been desperately trying to get a unity coalition together but the Syriza leader was a bit put out that the only minority parties invited to join it were pro-austerity.

Experts predict that if a new election is forced, the anti-austerity Syriza will do even better and may even top the polls which is good news but it might not be enough.  Lots of people voted for anti-austerity parties as a protest against the EU-imposed austerity measures that are making life hell for most Greeks but having made their protest and sent a message to the leaders of their traditional parties, are likely to vote as they usually do.

The Greek president, Karlos Papoulias, has suggested another technocratic government, which is another way of saying unelected dictatorship.  This is vaguely reminiscent of the Greek military junta in the 60s where the King legitimised the military leaders who had taken over the country in a coup d'état.  This time around the King is the President and the military junta is a team of unelected EU placemen.

If new elections are called it's likely to be in about a month's time.  In the meantime Greece is still without an elected government and austerity measures are still being implemented by the undemocratic rump they've been left with which ordinary Greeks aren't likely to find particularly palatable and as we saw in June last year, when the Greeks get upset they do it in style.

Angela Merkel is having a bad day

Angela Merkel has suffered a series of setbacks this weekend, first losing her favourite poodle in the French presidential election, then facing a challenge to her authority in Greece and finally a poor result for coalition allies Free Democrats has put her coalition's control of the Schleswig-Holstein region in jeopardy.

Poor Angela really isn't having a good time at the moment but on the bright side, there are federal elections in Germany next year so she might not have to worry about it for much longer.

Greek election produces no workable majority

With 99.92% of the vote counted, there is no outright winner and things are so close that another election might be necessary to try and find some sort of consensus.

Syriza has gone from fifth to
second in 3 years

New Democracy and Pasok both suffered big losses whilst Syriza almost doubled their vote share and the new Independent Greeks party have taken over 10% of the vote in its maiden election.  The Communists failed to make any significant gains but the hard right Golden Dawn increased their vote from less than 0.3% to almost 7%, gaining 21 seats in the Greek Parliament in the process.

It is unlikely that any party will form a coalition with Golden Dawn so there are effectively 279 seats to play for in any coalition.  Maintaining the current New Democracy/Pasok coalition would produce a coalition with 149 seats - two short of an absolute majority but an effective majority of nine if Golden Dawn are taken out of the equation.  Dimar is ideologically close to Pasok so a three-way ND/Pasok/Dimar coalition is a possibility.

A right wing coalition of New Democracy and Independent Greeks would produce a coalition with 141 seats - ten short of an absolute majority but an effective majority of one without Golden Dawn's seats.  A left wing coalition of Syriza, Pasok, KKE and Dimar would produce a coalition with 138 seats - thirteen short of an absolute and effective majority.

The support of Golden Dawn, with its 21 seats, could be the key to forming any minority coalition.