Europe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/oct/21/icm-poll-data-labour...

Labour - 41%, polling the highest they have polled in 9 years

Cons - 36%, up 3%

Lib Dem - 11%, down 4%, polling the lowest they have polled in 15 years

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/oct/21/icm-poll-data-labour...

The prime minister used to be deemed an electoral asset, and he continues to outperform the administration as a whole to an extent. But over the last few months he has veered from positive to deeply negative territory. As recently as last December he had a positive rating of +5, but this has now turned into a net negative of –11. Crucially, that leaves him in a statistical dead heat with Miliband, whose strongly negative rating of –17 in December has now eased to –12. If the economic blame game is still preventing an outright Tory collapse, the question of leadership is no longer doing so.

The chancellor has slid further and faster than the government as a whole, Osborne's +17 net rating in June 2010 had fallen to –2 by December, and has now dived right down to –25 points. The same is true of Nick Clegg whose already poor ratings are sinking to new depths. The deputy prime minister's net +19 rating in August 2010 had already flipped into a negative –19 by December of last year, and has now sunk further to –27.

Incumbent administrations are increasingly unpopular across the EU, and Britain is not immune. The Conservatives' rapidly shrinking advantage on the economy is only one sign of disillusion. Only 31% of respondents think the coalition is doing a good job overall, as against 52% who say the reverse. The difference between these two figures gives the government its negative net approval rating of –21 points. That is down from –8 in December last year, and from a positive approval of a net +23 during the coalition's first flush in power in June 2010.

The news for the Liberal Democrats is unremittingly bleak. Up until now ICM's methodology has suggested a less precipitous collapse in Lib Dem support than has been seen in other surveys since the coalition was formed. But third party's standing now shrivelled to its lowest level in 15 years, since the time when Tony Blair's all-conquering new government briefly attracted support of 60%. The last time the Lib Dems did so badly in a more ordinary political environment was over 20 years ago, during the party's miserable early days at the very start of the 1990s.

Canada, Europe, it's all the same thing. Just the rich and the poor fighting it out, time, after time, after time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/world/europe/hollande-to-press-germany...

Hollande Says NATO Missile Shield No Threat to Other Nations

Leader of Syriza insists Greece is not seeking to blackmail Germany during his charm offensive in Berlin

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/22/greek-leftist-leader-alex...

It's almost as if a séance is being conducted in order to communicate with a deceased loved one, which in their case would be Capitalism, except that we know its evil heart continues to beat away on life support.

Finally this inquiry is getting somewhere.

Jeremy Hunt: minister for Murdoch

If this module of the Leveson inquiry has a smoking gun, it is the memo Jeremy Hunt wrote to the prime minister on 19 November 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/24/jeremy-hunt-minister-murdoch...