The Guardian, 6 April 2010
On 6 April, British PM Gordon Brown travelled to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen’s permission to dissolve parliament and call an election, leads the Guardian. Speaking outside 10, Downing Street, Brown confirmed that the general election will be held on 6 May. “The economy is set to be the key battleground in the election,” the London daily notes, with the British PM arguing that he “got the "big decisions" right in the face of the world recession”. According to a Guardian ICM poll published today, support for Labour has climbed four points to 33% while David Cameron’s Conservatives have dropped one to 37%, leaving neither party with a clear majority to form a government.
The leader of Greece’s leftist alliance SYRIZA is the new bright hope of Greek politics. Steering a course between pragmatism and the rhetoric of class warfare, he has unsettled Berlin, and not just those who back Angela Merkel's austerity policies. 
Europe’s economic woes have forced us to try to understand the secret Olympian world of global finance. But now that we pay more attention to bond yields and stability mechanisms, isn’t it clear that the experts up on their lofty peaks don’t know what’s going on either? 
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that is far from being a model democracy. An Estonian journalist takes a critical look at the deferential treatment enjoyed by the regime in Baku.