Thursday, February 5, 2009

1905, Nordic style

Interesting to read that the economic calamity in Iceland has caused something to happen that hasn't happened in the UK since 1905 (and if it ever did happen again would certainly be considered a constitutional outrage) - the head of state has pre-empted the electorate and replaced a bitterly unpopular government with a new left-of-centre interim administration, even though it does not command a natural majority in parliament. You can see from this table that the Alliance and Left-Green coalition partners between them have only 27 seats out of 63 in the Althing.

Even more intriguing, the new coalition partners are split on the most fundamental issue - the Alliance want to join both the EU and the euro, while the Left-Greens want nothing to do with Brussels, and are instead touting a currency union with Norway. Something will have to give, because it certainly appears the status quo is not an option...

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