The BBC is reporting that Gordon Brown will appear before the Chilcot Inquiry into Iraq *before* the General Election in the Summer. This could have a massive effect on performance of the out-going government in June’s elections.

It was thought that if Brown appeared before the General Election, it would be used like a political football prior to the election, so plans for his appearance were being shelved until after the Summer.

Things took a turn when Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg applied pressure on Brown by asking him what he had to hide and if he would do so before the elections. As expected, opposition MPs jumped on this and Brown was left with little choice, but to volunteer.

In recent days, Brown wrote to the Sir John Chilcot’s investigation offering to appear before the election.

Former PM Tony Blair will before the inquiry at the end of this month.

Photo: Dreamstime (1990)

Apologies on the blogging front. Election.ie has been a little quiet. Yoyoing between bouts of panic buying gouge-happy stuff for burning and combining the odd reminents left in my press into new meal concoctions. Hello meat stuff with goopy onion tapenade. Darina, how are ya?

On a night where the rebellion against Brown looks well and truly alive, it is interesting to see the financial disclosures of spending in European Elections by UK political parties.

The Electoral Commission released figures yesterday showing just over £9 million was spent by UK political parties for campaigning for the Euros. Some 80% of the amount was spent by the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and United Kingdom Ind Party.

Breakdown of the spending by the parties:

(Table snipped)

Over Christmas, Suzy linked to the SIPO report to the Ceann Comhairle on spending by Irish political parties for their European campaigns. Very interesting reading there!

There’s such a plethora of news applications in Apple’s App Store, that’s it’s rare I come across a gem I have to share. The BBC World News Live application is one such find. While it’s not new, it’s one that’s dead handy to have in your pocket.

The BBC World News Live application developed by Livestation streams the World News service channel through your iPhone. If you are on wifi, it streams high-quality video and if you’re on 3G, then you are served lower-quality but still watchable video.

This morning between avoiding getting up to pack for home, I watched Alan Cummings host a documentary on cabaret clubs from Weimar through the Second World War. Sumptuousness.

Screen capture from the BBC World News Live iPhone application

Basescu on the election trail

Results from the hotly contested Romanian Presidential election broke last night. The Incumbant Traian Basescu, former Mayor of Bucharest, narrowly defeated his challenge, Social Democrat leader Mircea Geoana by a mere 0.6% of the vote – 50.3% to 49.7%.

Accusations of vote fraud are jumping left, right and centre from Geoana and his party.

The IMF stepped in earlier this year to prop up the ailing Romanian economy to the tune of $30 billion. Interestingly enough, the IMF released a survey last week citing it’s influence in preventing economic meltdown and calling for political reform in Eastern Europe – Latvia and Romania were called out especially. The very narrow election win margin coupled with bitter allegations of unsound electoral practices is the last thing that the IMF wants to hear.

A closer look at the precarious position of the government shows, the dangers run much deeper. Romania’s coalition government collapsed in October under a storm of alleged plans to enact voting fraud on massive scale to influence the outcome of the Presidential election. The junior partner party in government, the Social Democrats, withdrew from government leaving Besescu’s party, the Liberal Democrats, as a minority government with a budget for next year to pass through parliament. The pressure cooker of fingers of fraud being pointed and a minority government trying to draft and agree a budget was enough for the IMF to withhold €1.5 billion out of the €20 billion financial package to the country until a new government is formed and reform is seen to be progressing.

Romania was one of the fastest growing economies in the EU before the recessionary wave. With  a healthy GDP rate of 6.2% in 2007 and an unemployment rate of 3.9% in September of that year it was one of the best positioned economies to benefit the geographic slide of multinational investment from Western European and the US. In stark contrast, the World Economic Forecasts estimates the country’s GDP numbers to be in the region of -8.5% this year and a flat 0.5% in 2010.

Jobless numbers are also on the rise. October’s unemployment numbers stood at 7.1%, a 0.2% rise on the previous month. Eagle-eyed economists believe that those out of work will hit 8% before the year’s end. Unemployment now stands at a five-year high.

Some twenty years on from the bloody Romanian revolution, could the bite of economic woes kindle  memories of Communist entitlement?

It’s interesting to note that Romania was the only member of the Iron Curtain that executed its leader. Will the cut and thrust of the economic collapse backed by swell of public pain and political pressure force Basescu into a corner? Only time will tell.

Jezebel are liveblogging Sarah Palin’s appearance on Oprah right now. Pop over and check it out as a teaser for the video!