The FT reports that as the Fazio affair drags on, and doubts about the future course of the Italian government deficit continue to linger, Berlusconi is suffering notably in the opinion polls:

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, was dealt a blow on Monday when an opinion poll showed a collapse in support for his Forza Italia party and his leadership of the Italian centre-right.

With a national election due by May, a survey by the SWG research institute put Forza Italia’s support at 17.5 per cent, the party’s lowest score since it swept to power in 2001 with 29.4 per cent of the vote.

This story today is worth a quick glance:

Mark McGowan went into the tiny backroom kitchen of a south London gallery three weeks ago and flipped on the cold water. He didn’t turn it off, and doesn’t plan to for an entire year.

“The Running Tap,” as it’s called, is McGowan’s effort to protest against wasted water in London by blatantly letting it go down the drain.

Strange story this one. But not without interesting implications for the future.

Of course the accidental is important in history. The latest example would be how electoralist needs are going to impinge on Italy’s attempts to turn its economic crisis round. A year, at least, may well be lost on false promises and inaction. And as if that weren’t enough, the trifecta may be delivered by ‘terrorist-attack psychosis‘.

Italy aims to reduce its deficit to less than 3 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of 2007 ? a target described by Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister, as ?manageable? and which is in line with commitments given this week to the European Union.

However, Mr Berlusconi?s six-party coalition, trailing behind the centre-left opposition in the opinion polls, is planning a relatively mild 2006 budget to save itself from electoral defeat.

Italy?s economy fell into recession between October 2004 and last March and is plagued by low productivity growth, high unit labour costs, falling international competitiveness and an enormous public debt.

Spain’s governing Socialist party celebrated yesterday the conquest of the northwest region of Galicia (the Gallegos are the third of Spain’s ‘historic nationalities’, together with the Basques and the Catalans). The result follows a cliff-hanger election that ousted the centre-right Popular party and its octogenarian president, Manuel Fraga, from power. This result will undoubtedy give power to the elbow of those who are pushing for fundamental reform in Spain towards a federal system. The FT has the story.

“The contest in Galicia a conservative bastion and the birthplace of Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator, as well as the present Popular party leader, Mariano Rajoy had all the drama and suspense of the Florida vote recount in the 2000 US presidential elections.“

According to preliminary figures released today the number of people looking for work in Germany dropped in June for the third month in a row, but the slight change revealed little evidence of a real labour market turnaround.

Bild quoted preliminary figures from the Federal Labor Agency — the body responsible for compiling monthly unemployment statistics — in its front-page story.

The paper quoted agency sources as saying that the wave of layoffs in the country appeared to be ebbing.

The …..newspaper said that about 60,000 fewer people were jobless this month versus in May, leaving the national total at 4.75 million unemployed.

Just days after new French finance minister Thierry Breton suggested that French growth would be around 2% for 2005, France’s principal statistical agency, INSEE, point out that this is virtually unachieveable given what we already know about growth this year. 1.5% is the INSEE forecast, and even this figure they say has downside risks.

Meanwhile apparently, down at the commission they have M. Breton in their beady eye.

The low turnout – a 25.9 which fell far short of the necessary 50% minumum to secure a binding impact on parliament – means that the proposal to reform Italian law on assisted reproduction and embryo research effectively did not prosper.

In fact a majority of those who did vote voted to change the law.

This result is being widely covered as a ‘victory’ for the moral preachings of the new pope Benedicat XVI. I am sure it is nothing like that simple.