E-POST

Denmark is full of rules. One of the latest has a deadline of tomorrow, 1 November. By that date every business and society (technically, every entity that has a so-called CVR number) must have set up an electronic postbox, so that officialdom can communicate with it without having to send any paper.

In principle that is a sensible idea. Instead of sending out a million letters, the tax authorities can (eg) remind taxpayers of a payment deadline by sending them all an electronic message at the press of a button. However, good ideas are often not quite so sensible in practice. The big problem with the electronic postbox is not its operation, but setting it up.

Each postbox needs an administrator, responsible for maintaining it and letting others use it. Since my company involves just me, that is not such a burden. The difficulty is the security surrounding that administrator's codes and passwords. This involves a fiendishly complicated set of to and fro's between my computer (checked by the authorities from a distance that it satisfies the necessary technical requirements) and the new e-post website, followed by the sending of key files, access codes, installation codes, and other similar stuff. At one point, I gave up trying to get the system to work and rang the helpline. After starting at number 32 in the queue, I finally got to a recorded voice who kindly sent me in the direction of the website where I had been for the past two hours.

After a full morning, I did finally manage to establish an e-postbox. I can't say that I wait with baited breath to find out what eventually will pop into it, I am much keener to avoid the fines that would have occurred if I had not followed the rules. Which - thankfully - I have done.

Walter Blotscher

BRIDGE (10)

The bridge season is going well. After winning the opening tournament at the club in September, we have now just won the second, a Butler tournament (for aficionados, that means a pairs tournament with teams scoring).

And on Sunday, we took part in the first round of the national pairs championship, which took place at our club. We won that as well, which means we go forward to the Fünen regional final.

As my partner said in the car this evening, we are beginning to get a good feel for what the other is thinking and doing. Since bridge is a partnership game, that's a very good development.

Walter Blotscher

A BIG STORM

A storm hit the U.K. yesterday, causing three deaths, extensive damage from falling trees, more than half a million houses without power, and chaos to the rail network. The storm has now reached Denmark and is casing havoc here. A wind speed of 54m/s has been recorded in southern Jutland, which beats the record set by the great storm of 1999.

Here at home, the ground is littered with branches. Two 20m high silver birches have come down in the garden, narrowly missing the cherry tree I planted two years ago. And some big trees have come down in the wood. We'll definitely have enough wood for the winter.

The only good news is that most of the leaves which covered the lawn over the weekend have been blown over the hedge and into the neighbouring field. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Walter Blotscher

EDWARD SNOWDEN

Let's face it, the life of a whistleblower is not great. We all say that we want the benefits of what whistleblowers do, namely exposing the shenanigans of those who are in some way in power. But we also have short memories and a tendency to shrug our shoulders. What seems important today is less so in three months' time. Meanwhile, the whistleblower has to resurrect their life in a world where many people treat them as a pariah.

Against that background, the case of Edward Snowden is interesting, and not just because he managed to escape the clutches of an American Government hell-bent on locking him up for a very long period of time. True, he was fortunate in getting help from a Russian Government cynically taking advantage of the case for domestic and international political purposes. But what distinguishes him in my view is the sheer volume of documents he has apparently leaked to the Guardian and others.

We all know that spies spy. But the average citizen (including me) believes that there both is, and ought to be, a limit, either with respect to who is being spied on or with respect to the law of the land. The revelations about the U.S.'s tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel's personal mobile phone and other things are for many people a clear crossing of that line. Germany is a firm ally of the U.S., and Ms. Merkel is hardly a terrorist suspect. If that is not enough to protect her from American snoopings, then what is?

All of which leads me to think that Mr. Snowden is doing all of us more of a service than we first thought. He is not just a disenchanted Government nerd, he really is doing all of mankind a favour. I hope that when all the fuss has died down, he does manage to be able to find a place to live where the Americans won't come after him.  

Walter Blotscher

LOCAL ELECTIONS

Denmark woke up to a new landscape this morning, the sight of lots of serious faces staring down at the population from lampposts. There are local elections here next month, and today marks the start of the formal campaign.

Most countries' election campaigns involve posters of one form or another. What marks out Danish campaigns are that these posters are nearly always pictures of the candidates, with simply their name and party letter (A for Social Democrats, B for the Radicals, C for the Conservatives etc) plastered underneath. Midnight last night was the legal start time for the campaign, so party workers spent most of the night bagging the best spots (on a first come, first served basis) and shinning up lampposts. As soon as the elections have taken place, there is a fixed time limit during which they all have to be taken down again.

Academics have done research on whether all this activity in fact has an electoral effect. The answer is in national elections no, in local elections yes. In national elections there is so much other media coverage (notably television) that a local picture of, say, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has virtually zero influence on whether someone will vote for her or not. In local elections, on the other hand, the posters may well be the only way in which local people get to know who exactly is standing in their local area. This matters since election can be achieved either through personal or party votes; someone low down on the party list who would otherwise not be elected can, therefore, leapfrog up the list and be elected if they can harvest enough personal votes.

In some countries (the U.K., for instance) local elections are almost irrelevant, since local authorities have no real power. In Denmark they do, kommuner being able (for instance) to set the income tax rate. So knowing who is standing is important. Taking pretty pictures and shinning up lampposts is, therefore, worth doing.

Walter Blotscher

ROYAL WORTH

The Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark are in Australia at the moment, attending the 50th anniversary celebrations of the opening of the famous Sydney Opera House (which was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon). One of the reasons for sending them is that the Crown Princess, formerly Mary Donaldson, is herself an Australian, and hugely popular as the country's first and only ever royal.

While there, the couple will do the usual round of flying the flag and supporting Danish businesses. People are always questioning whether this sort of thing justifies the expense of having a royal family. In the case of Denmark and Australia, it does. Since she appeared on the horizon, Danish exports to Australia have doubled, not least because people there now know where Denmark is.

Walter Blotscher

DRONES

Are drones legal under international law? In principle, they could be, if their targets were genuinely military ones. The problems are first, that not all those whom the U.S. considers to be genuine military targets would be classed by others as such. Secondly, and more seriously, drones are not precise enough that they can hit their targets without also hitting a lot of innocent civilians. Amnesty International's recent report on American drone attacks in the badlands of Northwest Pakistan concludes that a number of them could be classed as war crimes.

Given U.S power, that idea is unlikely to gain much traction (though it may well make disenchanted Pakistanis and others anti-American). However, as international law expands in the incremental, lowest-common-denominator way it has over the last 50 years, it is possible, if not probable, that  binding rules will be developed to cover drone strikes. After all, they have for chemical weapons, and I can't see that drones are materially different in the way they affect non-combatants.

Walter Blotscher  

ARRANGED MARRIAGE (2)

Denmark's televised experiment with arranged marriage has come to an end. At the end of the four-week trial period, my wife's initial predictions of one yes, one no, and one "we'll give it a go" came true.

The only question was what would happen next. Cut to four months later. The one yes are now serious boy and girlfriend, but the "we'll give it a go" couple had split. Apparently the pressures of daily life were too much for her.

As the experts said, each of the three couples had been through more in the space of a month than most go through in their first ten years together. Against that background, a success ratio of one out of three is pretty good. Certainly the yes couple looked pretty happy.

Walter Blotscher

TATTOOS

Once confined to bikers and seamen, tattoos are increasingly popular in Denmark, especially amongst women and the young. It is estimated that about 15% of the population now has a tattoo. My daughter has one, for instance, a rather tasteful owl between her shoulder blades.

Yet they are not without risk. Around one in eight tattoos causes problems; itching, swelling, rashes or worse. The most common reason is when the tattoo is coloured, particularly if it includes red. The chemical used to make the ink red apparently reacts badly with a lot of people, green and yellow for some reason give fewer problems.

Since more than 40% of tattoos have some colour in them, this is potentially quite a big problem. Which is presumably why one in five people are unhappy with their tattoo, and a quarter of those subsequently get it removed.

The Health and Environment Ministries have combined to run a campaign alerting people to the dangers of tattoos. The slogan is "think before you ink", which sounds a lot snappier in English than it does in Danish.

Walter Blotscher

DANISH POLITICS (6)

The news this week has been dominated by the details of Lars Løkke Rasmussen's first-class travel and hotel costs. After sending his lieutenants out to argue that it was not necessary to give those details, he bowed to the inevitable and presented them at a press conference this afternoon.

It turned out to be one of the longest press conferences in Danish political history, at more than three and a half hours. This was to be expected. Mr. Rasmussen had a terrible case to defend, and the press smelt blood. In two areas, in particular.

First, with respect to expenses, Mr. Rasmussen has what the British police would call form. During his time as local politician, Interior Minister, Finance Minister and now Prime Minister-in-waiting, he has again and again been caught out sailing close to the wind, charging things to the public purse which should not have been, living a high lifestyle, and so on and so forth. the last time it happened, in 2008, he vowed that he had learned his lesson and that it would never happen again. DR replayed the clip on this evening's news, with the same interviewer now as then; it made him look foolish, to say the least.

It's even more foolish, given the image of himself that Mr. Rasmussen has strenuously tried to portray over the years. In Danish, it's "lille Lars fra Græsted"; little Lars from Græsted. In other words, he's an ordinary bloke, with ordinary hopes and desires, who understands other ordinary Danes and will see them right. The problem is that ordinary Danes almost never fly first-class, and certainly not at the taxpayer's expense.

If that was bad enough, it also emerged that the same money source had paid for an airfare for Mr. Rasmussen's daughter, at a cost of Dkr.27.000. Mr. Rasmussen will repay this money, which he claimed had been caused by a "misunderstanding". I am not sure that anyone believed this.

The whole saga has been a disaster for Mr. Rasmussen and his Venstre party. The only question is how big; the local elections next month will give the answer.

Walter Blotscher

A BIG FINE

The rumour is that J.P.Morgan will pay a fine to the U.S. Justice Department of US$13 billion in order to settle investigations into its mortgage-backed securities business. If true, this would be the biggest settlement ever paid by a U.S. company.

I have three comments on this. First, US$13 billion is a lot of money; writing it out in full (US$13,000,000,000) makes that clear. It's more than the gross national product of a number of countries.

Secondly, it refers only to the mortgage business. The bank has already paid fines in respect of other parts of its business, one for US$1 billion only last month. Other parts of the business are still being investigated.

Thirdly, it confirms the impression I got from reading Too Big To Fail, the account of the financial crisis. Namely that the people who ran (and still run) one of America's biggest financial institutions had no idea what they were doing.

Walter Blotscher

FREE SCHOOLS (3)

I have never been convinced by the idea that importing the Scandinavian concept of free schools into the U.K. will solve the latter's educational problems. Institutional changes need to take account of the culture in which they will operate; and, as I said earlier, there are major cultural differences between Denmark and Sweden on the one hand and the U.K. on the other.

The first 24 free schools started two years ago, and they have now been through their first inspections by Ofsted, the regulator. Four passed as outstanding, fourteen as good, five needed improvement and one was inadequate. For supporters of free schools, 75% getting good or better is a great result. Sceptics, on the other hand, point out that one would expect the first schools to be run by people with a lot of drive and funding, so 25% getting poor or worse is worrying.

This is an argument that is not going to go away. More schools will do badly - a Muslim one in Derby has just been classed as dysfunctional, for instance - and that will put pressure on politicians. Already there are rumours that the Liberal Democrat members of the Government coalition are unhappy with the whole free school experiment, and will try to distance themselves from it, when they write their manifesto for the next general election.

The argument will continue, because British people do not generally agree how their children should be educated. Free schools are a plaster designed to patch up this wound. The wound is too deep, in my view.

Walter Blotscher

POTENTIAL MELTDOWN (9)

Congress agreed a deal to raise the debt ceiling last night in the nick of time, which allowed the American government to reopen today after shutting down on 1 October.

The problem with the deal is that it is not really a deal at all. The federal government can continue until 15 January, while the Treasury's borrowing authority is extended until 7 February. In the meantime, Congress is supposed to negotiate a more lasting solution.

This is ridiculous. The political system of the world's biggest and most powerful economy cannot even agree a budget (i.e. plan) for the financial year which has already started. The issues that divided the parties yesterday are the same as those which divide them today. To use an American expression, everyone is merely kicking the can down the road.

American has serious long-term fiscal issues. Just as in Europe, the fundamental problem is unaffordable public commitments on healthcare and pensions. What is needed is serious political leadership. There ain't any, and that is worrying.

Walter Blotscher

ENERGY SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Denmark may be known for many things, but I doubt that energy self-sufficiency is one of them. Yet it is a fact that it is the only country in the 28-nation E.U. that is self-sufficient in oil and gas. Add in the number of windmills dotted around the countryside, and its energy position is unusually promising.

True, it is not self-sufficient in the way that, say, Norway is. Yet the North Sea that provides its neighbour with so many riches (and which did the same for the U.K. some 30 years ago) has also been kind to the Danes. The Government gets a fair chunk of revenue from oil taxes, and the sector supports some 15,000 well-paid jobs. This is expected to rise to 29,000 by 2020 as extracting hydrocarbons from old fields requires more sophisticated engineering and analysis techniques.

The Government has recently raised taxes on oil and gas production, with the aim of securing an extra Dkr.27.billion that can be used exclusively on developing the country's rail network over the next decade. This may be smart politics, but industry insiders have warned that it may deter energy companies from investing in the oil sector. If you have a golden goose, then there is always a temptation to pluck it. Time will tell if the Danish Government is plucking it too hard.

Walter Blotscher

WELFARE TOURISM

Welfare tourism is a big issue in Denmark. According to politicians, hordes of mainly East European citizens are flocking here in order to take advantage of the world's most generous welfare state. Backed by an increasingly assertive European Court of Justice, they are merely enforcing their E.U. rights. But they are also bankrupting the system they are feeding off.

I have never believed this. The basic problem with the Danish welfare state is that there are too few paying for it and too many reliant on it, notably pensioners. The number of those dwarfs that of clever Poles and Balts knowledgeable enough to pick their way through the Danish bureaucratic maze, and willing to live far away from their homeland. But the story sells well, particularly when times are hard.

Now, however, there are some facts on the table. The European Commission has just published a study that shows that jobless E.U. migrants represent only about 1% of the total E.U. population, and that the proportion of E.U. migrants amongst welfare beneficiaries is under 5%. Although the figures have an element of estimation in them, the overall message is clear; mass welfare tourism is a myth.

That won't stop politicians from pretending otherwise, of course. But that's another story ....

Walter Blotscher

AFRICAN GOVERNANCE

Mo Ibrahim is a Sudanese entrepreneur, who made a truckload of money developing mobile phone networks in Africa. Some years ago he established an annual prize aimed at promoting good governance on the continent. Any African head of state who has governed well, raised living standards, and then left office, gets US$5m spread over 10 years, followed by US$200,000 a year for life. The idea is both to reduce the incentives to remain in office indefinitely, and to use that time in office productively, without pilfering from state coffers.

Those are very generous terms (it's the world's most lucrative official prize) and a fairly low threshold. Despite that, there have only been three recipients in the seven-year history of the prize; Cape Verde's Pedro Verona Pires, Botswana's Festus Mogae and Mozambique's Joaquim Chissano. This year was the fourth in the last five years when the prize went unclaimed.

If there are more than 50 African countries, and constitutional two-term limits for Presidents, then you would expect there to be, on average, at least five candidates a year for the prize. That there aren't shows just how difficult it is to implement good governance in Africa.

Walter Blotscher

NFL NAMES (2)

My wife went off to England today in order to visit our daughter for a few days, so I was able to watch the live NFL game this evening without hassle. There are a lot of advert breaks in live American sport, but they gave me the opportunity to run through the rest of the NFL player list. Here are some other great (i.e. weird) sporting names.

Tandon Doss
Pannel Egboh
Hebron Fangupo
Tashaun Gipson
Ka'Lial Glaud
Ladarius Green
Dont'a Hightower
Omarius Hines
D'Qwell Jackson
Kapron Lewis-Moore
Star Lotulelei
Mossis Madu
Knowshon Morano
Martavius Nelomo
Jamize Olawale
Cordarelle Patterson
Tyler Polumbus
Bacarri Rambo
Coty Sensabaugh
Jawanza Starling
Kamerion Wimbley
Blidi Wreh-Wilson

Walter Blotscher

DANISH POLITICS (5)

Less than a month ago, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt seemed out for the count, with poll ratings consistently around 17-18%. In today's opinion poll, her Social Democrats stand at 24.2%, close to the 24.8% they polled in the September 2011 general election. Since that election, the party had seemed to plumb ever deeper depths of unpopularity. What is going on?

The answer is a colossal blunder by Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the previous Prime Minister and the man widely tipped (including by me) to get his old job back in two years' time. Following the December 2009 U.N. conference on climate change in Copenhagen, which he chaired as Danish Prime Minister, Mr. Rasmussen in opposition became chairman of a new organisation called the Global Green Growth Institute. As part of that job, he flew around the world drumming up support for green ideas. The problem is the cost of those flights; 15 of them cost a staggering kr.770.000 (more than £80,000), because he regularly flew first class.

If the GGGI were a private company, then this would be a matter for the shareholders, represented by the Board. However, GGGI is not a private company, but gets a big slug of its funding, kr.90m or so, from the Danish Government. That Government is not a happy bunny.

Politicians should always be careful about accepting junkets paid for by taxpayers (whether directly or indirectly); not only should the expense be justified, it should be seen to be justified. In these austerity times, flying first class is hard to justify in any circumstances. If Mr. Rasmussen doesn't know that, then he should.

However, he compounded his initial error by saying that he had not been chairman of CGGI when the policy of flying first class was approved. Even if true, it would not have stopped him from saying to his secretary "please get this ticket changed to business class"; having the right to something doesn't mean you have to take advantage of it, if you think it inappropriate. However, it turned out to be untrue; he was chairman at the time in question.  

The consequences have been dramatic. Support for both his party Venstre and the Social Democrats is now back where it was two years ago, albeit from different directions; some 7% of the electorate have switched sides overnight. A month ago, it was impossible to see how Ms. Thorning-Schmidt could be reelected; Mr. Rasmussen has just shown how.

Walter Blotscher

WORLD CUP (5)

Despite Denmark's catastrophic home defeat by Armenia back in June, there was still a faint mathematical chance that they could qualify as one of the teams coming second in their group. That chance required not only that Denmark win all of their remaining matches, but all sorts of other permutations in the group. In the next round of matches, Denmark did win, and those permutations miraculously took place. So before this evening's crunch match against Italy (who had already qualified) in Copenhagen, the chance was faint, but less faint than before.

Armenia then did Denmark a huge favour by beating Bulgaria 2-1. People started to dream. They began to dream even more when their team came back from 1-0 down to lead 2-1 with 12 minutes to go. However, Italy equalised in injury time. With a 2-2 draw, Denmark are definitely, definitely out.    

What this story shows is sport's eternal ability to get people to suspend belief. Denmark currently have a mediocre team and don't deserve to go to the World Cup. But until the moment when that Italian shot hit the back of the net, I too was willing to hope that it wouldn't happen.

Walter Blotscher

TAX TRUST (2)

Denmark's tax minister Holger K. Nielsen has accepted that the Tax Ministry's method of valuing property is a mess and should be scrapped. However, his proposal for dealing with it looks likely to turn into an even bigger mess.

He has decided to retain the 2011 valuations until 2015. During that time, an expert committee will work out what a new system should look like, Parliament will approve it, and the necessary IT-systems for it will be installed and tested. When the new valuations go out in March 2016, if there is a discrepancy between the value in 2016 and that in 2011 (suitably indexed), then the taxpayer will automatically get a rebate for the overpayments in the past.

You don't have to be a tax expert to see why this could end up as a political disaster. State auditors have already said that up to three out of four valuations are wrong, so freezing the system for two more years simply freezes those wrong valuations. Which in turn means that irate taxpayers will remain irate for at least two more years, a period which covers both local elections in a couple of months' time and a general election within 2 years.

Sensible voices from all parties have suggested that the Government err on the side of caution, return money now, and then if necessary claw money back in 2016 if it turns out that taxpayers have received too much. For reasons which I do not understand, Mr. Nielsen has chosen to do the exact opposite. My guess is that the Government will pay a high price for this folly.

Walter Blotscher

NORWAY (3)

Despite the taxi stunt, Jens Stoltenberg did indeed lose the general election held in Norway on 9 September. Although his Labour Party still got the most seats of any party, it was clear that the right-of-centre coalition, headed by the Conservatives' Erna Solberg, had won.

However, it was then that the problems started. One of the quirks of the Norwegian political system is that fresh elections are not allowed within the 4-year electoral cycle. So it's important to be able to form a Government that lasts the full term. The difficulty was that within the winning 4-party coalition, there were huge differences between the very right-wing, anti-immigrant Progress Party which came third after the Conservatives, and two small centrist parties. After a month of negotiations, it is clear that those differences could not be bridged. Ms. Solberg has therefore had to make do with a minority Government consisting of just the Conservatives and the Progress Party under Siv Jensen. It will have 77 of the 169 seats in Parliament, 8 short of a majority. Presumably on contentious issues, their erstwhile partners will either abstain or vote selectively, thereby allowing legislation to proceed.

What sort of legislation is needed in a super-rich, peaceful, well-functioning society? The general theme of the governmental programme is lower taxes and greater spending on infrastructure from the enormous Nkr.4.2 trillion state oil fund. Apart from that, there will be tougher jail sentences for criminals, more restrictions on immigrants, a raising of the speed limit on motorways from the current 100km/h, national service for all, the legalisation of professional boxing and poker, and an easing of the rules for buying alcohol (Norway has long had the same state monopoly of the sale of alcohol as Sweden has).

If this seems small beer for non-Norwegians, it is certainly not in Norway. The alcohol measures in particular were a bridge too far for the Christian Democrats, whose strength comes from the highly religious people living in the highlands (think Babette's Feast with mountains). For them, the idea that the Vinmonopol will be able to stay open as long as ordinary shops is not far short of a revolution.

The other interesting facet of the Government is that it will be headed by two women. As in other things, Norway leads the world in equal opportunities for women. It will be interesting to see how they do.

Walter Blotscher

WRITTEN EXAMS (2)

Back in June, I told you how in contrast to Brits, Danes like oral exams. The written ones are also pretty different as well, as I found out today. They are having mock exams at my school this week, and the Danish maths paper was this afternoon.

First of all, at 4 hours, it was longer than the average British exam, which is usually three hours max, even when I was at university. Secondly, the students could - and nearly all did - use a computer to write their answers. Thirdly, although the school's internet access was shut down, that was not in order to deny pupils the opportunity to consult outside sources, but to stop collaborative cheating. Pupils are allowed to take into the exam pretty much anything that they have used in class; textbooks, completed questions, notes, formulae, mathematical computer programmes, whatever. Whether it all helps is of course a moot point, but it is up to them what they use.

All of which contrasts with the English maths exam which they will be taking on Wednesday. There they are allowed nothing more than a pen, a pocket calculator and some geometrical instruments. It will be interesting to see which one they do better in.

Walter Blotscher

DEATH WISHES

More than 50% of Danes would like to die in their own bed at home, and a further 20% in a hospice; only 6% would like to pass on via a hospital or old people's home. Which makes it sad that these are the places where 70% spend their last hours.

We live in an increasingly consumerist world. But it seems that consumerism has its limits.

Walter Blotscher

NFL NAMES

American football is a weird, though exciting, game. But one of the weirdest aspects of it is the names of some of the players, which must be unique to this planet. I was moved to think about it by hearing the name Barkevius Mingo, who plays for the Cleveland Browns in the game I was watching this afternoon.

Here are some other examples, and I have only got to F on the list of current players.

Leger Douzable
D'Brickashaw Ferguson
Vontaze Burfict
Plaxico Burress
Tashard Choice
Joplo Bartu
Arrelious Benn
Da'Quan Bowers

Compared with them, Walter Blotscher sounds crushingly ordinary.

Walter Blotscher

E.U. PATENTS

E.U. Member States have decided to set up a European patent court to rule on patent issues. This is exactly the sort of thing the E.U. should be doing in order to promote the single market, allowing a company with a patent in one country to have it applied in all 28, thereby saving it lots of time and money.

It is undoubtedly the case that even if there are benefits, a European court takes sovereignty away from national authorities. When that happens in Denmark, paragrah 20 of the constitution kicks in. Either 5/6 of Parliament must vote in favour of it (at 83.33%, a high hurdle), or there must be a referendum.

Most of the political parties are in favour of the new court. However, both the Danish People's Party (on the extreme right) and Enhedslisten (on the extreme left) are anti-E.U.; in order to get the required majority, one of them must vote in favour.

Having a veto normally puts political parties in a strong position, but Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has decided to call their bluff. In her speech yesterday to the opening of the new session of Parliament, she said that if neither of them were prepared to vote in favour, then there would be a referendum on the issue on 25 May 2014.

The mainstream parties are presumably taking the view that the average Dane will think that an E.U.-wide patent court is a sensible idea. I agree. The pressure is now back on the naysayers.

Walter Blotscher

ITALY (4)

Italy went in and out of a crisis today. The crisis was caused when Silvio Berlusconi decided to order his party's five Ministers in the grand coalition Government of Prime Minister Enrico Letta to resign. Various reasons were put forward for this, but the real one was that Mr. Berlusconi is about to be thrown out of the Senate after he lost his final appeal in August against a criminal conviction for tax fraud.

However, Mr Berlusconi miscalculated. Buoyed by rumours that the Ministers in question were not as loyal to Mr. Berlusconi as he thought, Mr. Letta refused to accept the resignations and called for a vote of confidence in the Government. By the time the vote came round this evening, Mr. Berlusconi had himself worked out that he didn't have the control over his party that he thought he had. Bowing to the inevitable, he then executed a turnaround and said that his party would support the Government after all.

A number of things flow from this event. But the primary one is the weakening of Mr. Berlusconi, which makes it more likely that he will in fact be thrown out of the Senate.The biggest hindrance to Italy's beginning to deal with its huge economic and political problems has been Mr. Berlusconi, who has used the political process to protect himself from various lawsuits rather than sort out the country he purported to lead. If Mr. Berlusconi were finally to disappear from politics, then there is chance that Italy will be able to move forward.  

Walter Blotscher

POTENTIAL MELTDOWN (8)

The U.S Government began to shut down today. Democrats and Republicans could not agree on a budget to finance federal operations for the coming fiscal year (which starts on 1 October in America). The arguments are not new, the compromises are not present. It's no way to run a whelk stall, as my mother would say.

The budget is one thing, raising the federal debt ceiling is another. That needs to be sorted around the middle of the month, otherwise things start to get really bad. Which looks increasingly probable.

Walter Blotscher