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European politics: a game involving up to forty-seven democracies. Terms last four to five years, and then the centre-right wins. In Norway, the Labour Party oversaw a growing economy and a formidable campaigner in its Prime Minister, Jens…
During the 2005 election, Angela Merkel found herself fending off claims that she would be the German answer to Margaret Thatcher. The then-opposition politician responded with a lengthy tirade on everything from her stance on German…
A month on, it’s still not clear just who won the Dutch election. Was it the sitting Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, of the centre-right Liberals, who finished in first place and gained ten seats? Was it his centre-left opponent, Diederik…
Whatever happened to Francois Hollande? You remember: the “Monsieur Normal” who ended the French Left’s seventeen-year exile from the Palais de l'Élysée, the great white hope of the European Left, the donnish career politician who proved…
Guess who’s back? The Dutch Labour Party, that’s who. The Partij van de Arbeid had been written off and left for dead. Attacked on the right by the governing Liberals, eroded from the Left by the GroenLinks – ‘GreenLeft’ – party and in…
He is the longest-serving Italian Prime Minister of the post-war era. He has been Prime Minister on three separate occasions, surviving seemingly-fatal political defeats to return and to triumph. For the Italian Left, he is Margaret…
Helle Thorning-Schmidt – the real-life left-leaning first female Prime Minister of Denmark – has one big problem: she’s not Birgitte Nyborg, the fictional left-leaning first female Prime Minister of Denmark. And that just might be fatal to…
It has almost become uninteresting. The Eurozone will collapse (it probably won’t). Angela Merkel is bound to cave (she almost certainly will not). We are on the brink of a European mega-recession, from which the continent will never fully…
Meet Henk and Ingrid. Married, with two children, they both work – although since the crisis hit, Ingrid has had to move to a part-time job – love their cars, and live in a Vinex neighbourhood – the Dutch equivalent of Crawley or Winnersh –…
Eight pm at the close of the second round, and the results are in from the Pyrénées-Atlantiques 2nd. Nathalie Chabanne, the Socialist Party candidate: 20,090 votes. Francois Bayrou, leader, founder and Presidential standard-bearer for the…
It’s the most important election in history tomorrow. It could destroy the Obama Presidency and stillbirth Hollande’s. It could bring about the economic collapse of Spain and the political destruction of the German Christian Democrats. It…
It could confirm Francois Hollande’s revolution: or stop it in its tracks. It could prove that there is life after Nicolas Sarkozy for the UMP, or it could be the beginning of the end. It could bring the far left out from the cold or it…
