This week's news on berlusconi.
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Miliband sets the goad standard
16 Maywww.guardian.co.uk
Labour has decided that Cameron's weak spot is his temper, and tried everything to make him lose it at PMQs
"Calm down, calm down!" said Ed Balls to David Cameron as he was banging on about police budgets at prime minister's questions. Labour has decided it has found Cameron's weak spot – his temper. I assume they hope to goad him into losing it again. With any luck, they might get a real spittle-filled, face-purpling outburst, which would get a million hits on YouTube.
"I am extremely calm," the PM replied, but he said it like Herbert Lom as Inspector Clouseau's boss. You may recall the scene in which, very calmly, he slices off his finger with a cigar-cutter.
Ed Miliband spotted the incipient rage. "I know you are going to have extensive training before you go before Leveson. I have a suggestion – it should include anger management."
There is nothing more infuriating than being told you are in a temper when you are not actually in a temper. Cameron made a tremendous effort to rein himself in. "Leave him, he's not worth it," he must have told himself, metaphorically grabbing himself by the lapels and pushing himself back on to his stool.
And the session had started so amicably. Miliband welcomed the fall in unemployment. Then he asked what discussions the prime minister had had with the new French president about growth.
This was a trap, since Cameron treated Monsieur Hollande with a complete ignoral when he visited London, as Miliband reminded him.
"But," Miliband continued, "I am sure that a text message and 'LOL' will go down very well."
The reference to Cameron's cosy text messages to Rebekah Brooks was also a trap. LOL can mean so many things. "Leave it Out, Loser" perhaps. Or "Loss Of Liberty". We shall see.
The PM was prepared. "Perhaps I have been overusing my mobile phone. But at least I know how to use it, rather than just throw it at the people who work for me! You can still see the dents!"
Did he mean that Gordon Brown had scarred his Myrmidon Miliband for life? He did not explain.
The Labour leader got on to the police, who were "absolutely furious" about Cameron's broken promise to protect the front line. The prime minister's reply was: "Oh dear, he is having a bad day."
Nobody knew what that meant. But he finished with his usual pub car park abuse: "I often wonder whether your problem is that you are weak, or that you are leftwing – your problem is that you are both."
But the high point of the session came when Sir Peter Tapsell arose. We could almost hear the flapping of wings as the Recording Angel himself arrived to take down Sir Peter's every word, written in flame on tablets of gold. Did Chancellor Merkel regret not having taken our prime minister's advice last October about "the big bazooka"?
That sounded more like Silvio Berlusconi than David Cameron, who crisply – even calmly – said that the euro might be close to collapse. When history is on the march, Sir Peter is always in the vanguard.
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Prosecutors Probe Founder of Italy's Northern League
16 MayWSJ.com - Europe
Italian prosecutors placed Umberto Bossi, founder of the Northern League and an ally of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, under investigation for alleged fraud. -
It's a good thing Moody's don't run Italy
16 MayNew Statesman
Consistency: not the CRA's strong point.We missed this yesterday:
4 October 2011, Moody's downgrades Italy to A2, saying "the fragile market sentiment that continues to surround euro area sovereigns with high levels of debt implies materially increased financing costs and funding risks for Italy". Berlusconi promises to cut spending and debt, saying "the Italian government is working with the maximum commitment to achieve its budget objectives."
14 May 2012, Moody's downgrades 26 Italian banks. The ratings agency gives three reasons for doing so, the first of which is:
Increasingly adverse operating conditions, with Italy's economy back in recession and government austerity reducing near-term economic demand.
S&P did the same thing in April, downgrading Spain for too much austerity. It's a good thing these organisations aren't hugely important worldwide financial actors, or anything, because "they don't know what they're talking about".
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Statesmen and stature: how tall are our world leaders? | Datablog
15 Maywww.guardian.co.uk - science
It seems we like our political giants to be just that – giants – according to research. So how does France's new president François Hollande compare to past leaders?
• Get the data
• More data journalism and data visualisations from the GuardianFrançois Hollande will step into Nicolas Sarkozy's shoes today when he is sworn in at the Elysée palace, becoming France's first socialist leader in nearly 20 years. But how does he compare to the past leaders in terms of height?
Last year we were told stature really does matter according to a scientific paper published in Social Science Quarterly.
It was an opportunity too good to pass up so we compared the heights of various leaders from different countries and eras. Now we have a new leader in the pack we're asking once again how tall really are our leaders? We've also compared them to the average height of statesmen of their country over the last 40 years.
At 5ft 7ins, Hollande is two inches taller than Sarkozy but also two inches shorter than the average height for French leaders of the past 40 years. Both David Cameron and Barack Obama beat the average height, standing tall at 6ft 1. As the first female Chancellor of Germany, it's not suprising that Angela Merkel stands 5 inches shorter than the average height for German leaders.
In the scientific paper published last year psychologists from Texas Tech University found in a study that almost two-thirds of participants showed a preference to draw larger figures when asked to draw images of leaders. An evolutionary throwback has been suggested as the root of this. Nic Fleming wrote:
It is not for nothing that top politicians are known as political giants or "big beasts". Voters see tall politicians as better suited for leadership, according to a survey of how people visualise their leaders. Psychologists believe the bias may stem from an evolved preference for physically imposing chiefs who could dominate enemies.
Cameron, Obama and Hollande have all beaten shorter candidates in past elections – Gordon Brown at 5ft 11ins, John McCain at 5ft 8ins and Sarkozy at 5ft 5ins.
The work, published by Dr Gregg Murray and J. David Schmitz, found evidence that would suggest physical stature affects people's preferences for political leadership. The paper entitled 'Caveman Politics' on evolutionary psychology relates it back to ideas and beliefs gleaned from our prehistoric ancestors.
Well, apart from Cameron, Obama and Canada's Stephen Harper who all come in at over six foot there are some current political leaders who are rather more diminutive. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is placed at somewhere around the 5ft 2ins mark.
America certainly seem to be following the rule with all but one of the US presidents in our list coming in at six foot or over. The UK have rather a mixed bag from Margaret Thatcher (5ft 5ins) and Winston Churchill (5ft 6ins) to Robert Gascoyne-Cecil who is believed to have been 6ft 4ins.
The table below shows a selection of world leaders, past and present, and their stature. Those in bold are current leaders.
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Heard the one about the rise of the political comedian | John O'Farrell
13 Maywww.guardian.co.uk
The disillusioned public is welcome to elect a comedian, but political office must still be taken seriously
George Orwell wrote: "Every joke is a tiny revolution." He never had his one-liners rewritten by New Labour ministers, as I did. Not so much a revolution, more a public-private partnership for growth in the era of digital enterprise. When I was writing the odd line for Gordon Brown, the best joke I ever gave him was: "I think I'll put up pensions by 75p." I only said it as a gag. I didn't think he'd go and do it. Politicians have always used humour: from Charles James Fox to William Hague, they've understood that a good joke can get an audience on your side. Obviously, you might not want Ann Winterton closing the Comedy Store with a selection of racist one-liners, but, in a sphere where the speaker needs to be liked, a half-decent joke is the quickest way to reassure the public that you are human just like them. Almost.
But recently, across the western world, this syndrome has been flipped on its head. Instead of the politicians acting like a bunch of comedians (cf any radio phone-in), a handful of satirists and comics have put themselves up for election and found a disillusioned public willing to go along with the gag. In the past week, the Italian comedian Beppe Grillo has had a significant impact in Italy's local elections and indicated that he'll stand in next year's national poll. The green, anti-euro campaigner is a sort of cross between Michael Moore and Eddie from Little and Large. He has gained enormous support through his satirical protests about the corrupt nature of the Italian government, which he is now translating into actual votes. Critics say he hasn't explained what he would actually do as an alternative but, to be fair, Silvio Berlusconi never warned anyone about some of the things he was going to get up to either.
The current mayor of Reykjavik is a stand-up comic whose Best Party won 34% of the vote. Jon Gnarr declared that he would not go into coalition with any party whose members had not watched all five seasons of The Wire. Surely Britain would be a better country today if Nick Clegg had set the same condition? After a list of election promises, Gnarr also promised to break all his promises once in power, which for a logical paradox has a refreshing honesty about it.
This comic-as-politician syndrome seems to have two major variants. There is the "Vote for me as a hilarious protest" candidacy, which is all very well for making a satirical point on election day, but doesn't help to hammer out that difficult budgetary allocation six months down the line. Then there is the satirist who is genuinely angry about injustice and the state of the government, but is prepared to put in the work doing all the boring stuff that change actually demands.
Saturday Night Live veteran Al Franken won a seat in the US senate in 2008 and has served his office diligently ever since, making the greatest sacrifice a comedian can make, which is to be serious most of the time. It's because I could never trust myself to be that hardworking, sombre and appropriate that I resisted suggestions I should go for a winnable Labour seat after I stood in true blue Maidenhead. Sure I'd love the attention and the chance to make jokes in the House of Commons. But I have observed the job of a politician close up and it is no joke.This is the problem I have with Britain's most successful comedian-cum-politician, Boris Johnson. He thinks being mayor of London is a bit of a laugh, a part-time job that gives him plenty of opportunity to star as the lovable mop-haired toff who was such a hit on Have I Got News For You. When Londoners re-elected him against the anti-Tory trend, they were choosing form over content, character over narrative. And Tory over Labour, dammit.
But voters across the western world are fed up with the hypocrisy and deceit they associate with on-message party dullards, so who can blame them for being drawn to the disarming honesty and apparent humanity of big characters who make them laugh? Comedy is about communication and honesty, and so a few satirists re-engaging a bored electorate is surely to be welcomed. But we also need full-time politicians who take the job seriously, be they former comedians, Telegraph columnists or Big Brother contestants. So I'm all in favour of political jokes. I just don't care for the ones who seem to get elected.
Twitter: @mrjohnofarrell
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Italy’s local elections: Battered all over
11 MayThe Economist - Europe
ITALIANS are exasperated. They are cross with politicians, parties, austerity, technocrats who seem out of touch and with a new tax on property that is all but incomprehensible. So when voters in 1,000 municipalities were given the chance to show their discontent on May 6th-7th, they grabbed it.Shaking the political establishment, the clearest winners were protest parties, above all the Movimento 5 Stelle (5-Star Movement), founded by Beppe Grillo, a comedian, satirist and tireless blogger. Italians also showed their irritation by staying at home: the turnout was seven points down on equivalent elections five years ago.The clearest losers were Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party and the xenophobic Northern League. Both parties are handicapped by leadership concerns and scandals. A criminal trial in Milan has aired scurrilous allegations about Mr Berlusconi’s private life and a financial scandal has cast shadows over the Northern League.In the 26 provincial capitals where elections were held, the People of Freedom’s vote crashed from 37.6% in the 2008 general election to a miserable 11.6%. The Northern League collapsed from 6.4% to 2.7%. Mr Grillo gloated of the right’s misfortune: “Nothing remains. They are liquefying in this political diarrhoea.” Yet the centre-left Democratic Party also lost ground, slumping from 33.9% in 2008’s election to 16.4%.Even so, with its...
