Politicians are accustomed to taking the blame when things go wrong. Europe's economic crisis is, however, provoking a wider backlash against political leaders seen as failing to practice what they preach. ... In Spain, where the government of Prime Minister Manuel Rajoy has been embroiled in a series of scandals, the issue of corruption is now the number 2 concern of Spaniards, right behind the country's 26 percent unemployment rate, according to a recent poll.

No finishing straight in a Belgian race at this time of year is complete without a big yellow flag with a black lion. But whilst the

In an unscientific front page poll, we asked our readers two questions - whether they intend to watch the vice-presidential debate, and whether they expected Republican Sarah Palin or Democrat Joe Biden to win the debate. The good news for Sarah Palin is that we found expectations are low, meaning if she holds her own, it will be viewed as a win, exceeding expectations. The bottom line is that the overwhelming majority of our readers are expecting Biden the bully to bloody the moose whisperer.

Here is how the numbers played out: Our readers are politically involved - with 87% expecting to watch the Televised VP debate. This is not surprising, after all we are a TV news site. Now, the 87% breaks down to, 61% expect Biden to win and the remaining 26% expect Palin to wind up victorious. The people not intending to watch are almost evenly split, with 8% favoring Biden and 6% Palin. Of all the respondents, a total of 68% expect Biden to win the debate and 32% think Palin will win the debate. As of the time of this writing there were 85 respondents and we will keep the polling open through debate time.

In politics, victory is a matter of perception. Sarah Palin, the star of campaign 2008 is poised to win the perception game if she can only stand up to Biden. Biden on the other hand needs to come out with a clearly dominating performance - with no gaffes like his recent claim that Franklin Roosevelt went on TV to explain the stock market crash of 1929 to the U.S. population. The problem with that gaffe was - there was no TV in 1929! Yup, no Rather, Gibson or O'Reilley. And, Franklin Roosevelt was not yet President at that time. So if Biden falls into another whopper like that expect neutral commentators to deem Palin the winner.