In 2006, writer Chuck Klosterman published a spoof review of Chinese Democracy, an album that at that stage most observers believed would never see the light of day. He had a high old time imagining guest appearances by Johnny Marr and reggaeton covers of Thin Lizzy, but also made a serious point about an album that had then taken 12 years to make and reputedly cost $13m. “There is really only one way for Chinese Democracy to avoid utter and absolute failure,” he wrote. “It needs to be the greatest rock album ever made.”

That’s the problem with spending so much and so long making an album. By default, it’s a monumental folly: however good it is, it can’t conceivably be good enough. Two years later, it’s impossible for the music to be heard objectively, uncoupled from its background: the expense, the time, the departure of every founder member of Guns N’ Roses bar frontman Axl Rose, the blogger facing jail for leaking tracks, Dr Pepper’s offer to give everyone in America a free can if the album was released in 2008, the bizarre rotating cast that variously included Moby, Brian May, basketball star Shaquille O’Neal and a guitarist wearing a KFC variety bucket on his head, who apparently refused to perform in the studio unless he was inside a specially constructed chicken coop.

Then again, Chinese Democracy clearly doesn’t want you to view it objectively. The credits go on and on like an airport bonkbuster, painstakingly detailing the painstaking details: 14 studios, seven people credited for “additional Pro-Tools”, six guitarists on one song alone. It wears its agonising gestation like a badge of honour, as if all this was not merely unavoidable but somehow necessary. In reality, the time and effort involved magnifies the album’s shortcomings. You hear the lyrics of If the World - “if the world would end today, all the dreams we had would slip away, there’s nothing more to say-ay-ay” - and think: bloody hell, is that best you could come up with? It’s not like you haven’t had time to think about it.

But even if you knew nothing of Chinese Democracy’s history, you’d realise something was up. However much of the $13m was spent on mastering, it wasn’t enough to stop it sounding like a compilation album. When Sorry recedes into the distance - a joyful event that, while the ballad trudges mirthlessly on, you start to panic is never actually going to take place - it’s replaced by IRS, a rocker that conducts itself at a completely different volume, because it’s a completely different band, possibly in a completely different decade. It would perhaps be unfair to call the album’s lyrics - big on concepts like pullin’ through, takin’ your time and knowin’ you ain’t crazy no matter what they say - wildly solipsistic: plainly any listening multimillionare 80s hair metal frontmen struggling to complete a massively overdue, over-budget album are bound to feel a warm, inclusive tingle of identification.

The arrangements, meanwhile, are impossibly over-stuffed. Chinese Democracy is frequently as exhausting to listen to as it must have been to make, not least on the regular occasions when Rose, clearly unable to decide whether to have another verse or a widdly-woo guitar solo, opts to do both at the same time. Some tracks mark the way whole genres have risen and fallen in the time it took Rose to pull his finger out. If the World features echoes of trip-hop and nu metal, Shackler’s Revenge bears the influence of the Prodigy and Nine Inch Nails, presumably because both were the latest thing at different points in its gestation. There Was a Time features brass, a choir, tribal drumming, cinematic strings, a hip-hop breakbeat, Tomorrow Never Knows-ish backwards tapes, a feedback-laden guitar solo and Rose’s familiar wail. It should be noted that I am here describing only the first 20 seconds. After that, the arrangement gets a bit silly and overwrought. The songs are episodic, with endless key changes, although it’s never entirely clear whether this is a brave attempt to break free of stultifying verse-chorus conformity, or just the flailing of a man who has absolutely no idea when to give it a rest. In fairness, it sounds like the former more often than the latter, for the simple reason that Rose keeps coming up with fabulous melodies, strong enough to hold songs like Better and Madagascar together, strong enough even to cut through the nonsense of There Was a Time.

Listening to them, you’re struck by the thought that Chuck Klosterman might have been wrong. Chinese Democracy is clearly not the greatest rock album ever made, but nor is it an absolute and utter failure. The irony is, that for all the lavishing of money and time and technology, it’s saved by something as old fashioned as a good tune.

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The pirates who hijacked a Saudi supertanker have demanded a $25m ransom to be paid within 10 days.

They have warned of “disastrous” consequences unless the money is paid, according to the news agency, AFP.

Mohamed Said, who claimed to be one of the pirates who seized the Sirius Star, told the agency: “We are demanding $25m [£17m] from the Saudi owners of the tanker.

“The Saudis have 10 days to comply, otherwise we will take action that could be disastrous.”

The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, signalled that Britain would not pay a ransom for the two British crew members held hostage.

Speaking to reporters, he said the international community must “stand firm” against hostage-taking in all its forms. He insisted that making payments in return for the release of hostages would only encourage further such incidents.

“There is a strong view of the British government, and actually the international community, that payments for hostage-taking are only an encouragement to further hostage-taking and we will be approaching this issue in a very delicate way, in a way that puts the security and safety of the hostages to the fore.”

The Sirius Star, which is carrying $100m (£66m) worth of oil, was hijacked at the weekend.

The 330-metre oil tanker, the largest ship ever captured at sea, is reported to be anchored near the town of Harardheere on Somalia’s eastern coast.

Its owner, Vela International, a subsidiary of the state oil company Saudi Aramco, yesterday opened ransom negotiations, according to the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal.

“I know the owners of the tanker are negotiating on the issue. We do not like to negotiate with terrorists or hijackers. But the owners of the tanker, they are the final arbiters of what happens there,” he said.

The UN estimates that pirates have received up to $30m in ransom payments this year.

Reports of the demand come as Russia announced it would send more warships to the aast Africa coast to prevent pirate raids.

The Russian news agency RIA Novosti said the deployment of a missile frigate from Russia’s northern fleet last month had helped prevent the seizure of at least two ships in the area.

“Russia will be sending warships from other fleets to this region,” said Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, Russia’s navy commander, attributing the decision to “the current developments off the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden, where Somali pirates have intensified their activity”.

Yesterday, an Indian warship destroyed a pirate “mothership” in the Gulf of Aden. The Indian navy said its frigate, one of the numerous international warships dispatched to patrol the waters around the Horn of Africa, had approached the suspicious vessel on Tuesday evening.

It turned out to be a previously captured ship being used by pirates as a base to launch their speedboats far out to sea.

“The INS Tabar closed in on the mother vessel and asked her to stop for investigation,” an Indian navy spokesman said. “But on repeated calls, the vessel’s threatening response was that she would blow up the naval warship if it approached.”

After a heavy exchange of fire, the pirate ship was destroyed. Two speedboats escaped.

On the same day, pirates seized three other ships: a Greek bulk carrier, a Thai fishing boat and an Iranian-chartered cargo ship carrying 36,000 tonnes of wheat from Germany.

In September, pirates who captured the Ukrainian ship MV Faina, carrying 33 army tanks, initially demanded $20m, although they later reduced their ransom.

The Faina and its crew are still being held near the north-eastern Somali fishing town of Eyl, together with more than a dozen other vessels with about 220 foreign seamen on board.

Al-Jazeera yesterday broadcast an audio tape featuring what it said was the voice of Farah Abd Jameh, a pirate on the Sirius Star, making his demands.

“Negotiators are located on board the ship and on land,” he said. “Once they have agreed on the ransom it will be taken in cash to the oil tanker. We assure the safety of the ship that carries the ransom. We will mechanically count the money and we have machines that can detect fake money.”

The authenticity of the tape could not be confirmed.

While the capture of so many passing cargo vessels makes a mockery of pirates’ claims to be protecting the country from foreign exploitation, complaints about illegal fishing in Somali waters are genuine.

The Seafarers’ Assistance Programme in Mombasa says that at any one time there can be hundreds of foreign trawlers, mostly from Europe and the Middle East, fishing within Somalia’s 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

Local fishermen say their catches are declining as a result. While some foreign ships do have permits, corrupt officials often pocket the money.

Analysts say that in the long term the key to ending piracy is establishing an effective authority on land in Somalia. Piracy all but disappeared in 2006, when the Islamic Courts Union controlled most of southern and central Somalia for six months, bringing in law and order for the first time since the early 1990s.

Pirates began to flourish once more after invading Ethiopian forces ousted the Islamists. The transitional federal government, with Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed as president, exercises no authority on the ground or at sea and claims it can do little about the pirates.

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Prince has again come under fire this week, and not from perfume manufacturers. The Purple One is being slammed after he criticised gay marriage in a recent New Yorker interview, saying it isn’t “right”.

“God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out,” Prince told the New Yorker’s Clare Hoffman. “He was, like, ‘Enough.’”

The interview paints an illuminating picture of The Artist Formerly Known As Open-Minded. As a practising Jehovah’s Witness, he not only proselytises door-to-door – “Sometimes people act surprised, but mostly they’re really cool about it,” – but he also subscribes to some of the religion’s more socially conservative precepts. “It’s all about religion,” he said.

“You’ve got the Republicans, and basically they want to live according to [the Bible]. But there’s the problem of interpretation, and you’ve got some churches, some people, basically doing things and saying it comes from here, but it doesn’t. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum you’ve got blue, you’ve got the Democrats, and they’re, like, ‘You can do whatever you want.’ Gay marriage, whatever. But neither of them is right.”

These would be jarring comments from any slinking, flamboyant singer – but particularly from a man whose music seemed to exemplify a kind of hedonistic pansexuality.

Then again, maybe Prince was misquoted. The Perez Hilton blog has weighed in with an anonymous source “close to the rocker”, alleging that the singer was “grossly misquoted and misinterpreted”.

“What His Purpleness actually did was gesture to the Bible and said he follows what it teaches, referring mainly to the parts about loving everyone and refraining from judgment,” Perez Hilton reported. “‘We’re very angry he was misquoted,’ says our Prince insider.”

The New Yorker has confirmed that they are standing behind the story.

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I like to think of myself as a green driver. In my quest to beat my car manufacturer’s official fuel consumption figures (so-called hypermiling), I smugly cruise at an energy-saving, diesel-powered 56mph. But am I really driving as efficiently as I think?

I drove - slowly - to Bedfordshire to find out.

I had seen the intriguingly named Millbrook Proving Ground on Top Gear, when Jeremy Clarkson et al thrashed some trucks around its 45 miles of twisty track. For the BP Ultimate green driving test, however, I was required to proceed super-sedately in a two-litre petrol Ford S-Max.

The greenest drivers complete the 7.85-mile course - a mix of stop-start city driving, hill starts, mountain tracks and motorways - on one litre of petrol. I would see how far a litre would take me. (Disappointingly, I would not actually come to a halt; the engineer’s laptop just beeped when I used up my litre, while two data loggers kept track of the vehicle’s speed and fuel consumption.)

I was not given any tips beforehand, but how hard could it be? I may not be Lewis Hamilton but anyone can drive slowly. As I climbed into the S-Max, memories of my real driving test flooded back. I had fluked a pass despite being so nervous that my left leg shook uncontrollably whenever I pressed the clutch. Fifteen years on, I pulled out of the parking bay and stalled.

Tackling the “city” stretch first, I had to keep stopping and starting. Anthony Sale, a Millbrook engineer, sat in the back, quietly making notes about my driving on his laptop. After coasting up to a few gloriously empty roundabouts in neutral - believing this would help my fuel economy - I came to the incredibly steep truck slopes. Big two-litre engine, short slope, oh dear: it took an enormous high-revving, fuel-gobbling wheelspin to heave the S-Max up the hill.

Next up was the twisting “Alpine” road, the stuff of test-drive dreams. I trundled sensibly through the gears and tutted at the asphalt patch where James Bond’s - or rather, Daniel Craig’s - stuntman had taken a huge chunk out of the road when rolling his Aston Martin in Casino Royale. And at that moment, not even five miles into the course, Sale’s laptop gave a disapproving beep. I had, in effect, run out of fuel.

I still had one stretch left: the high-speed bowl. This section simulates motorway driving, except there are five lanes and, rather thrillingly, futuristic-looking Saabs and Opels sped past me at 100mph. Here, surely, I could excel. I smoothly took the car up to 56mph and held it there in fifth gear.

Back at the test centre, I was ushered into the results room. Sale holds the record for the “perfect run”; he achieved 34mpg, emitting 191g of carbon dioxide.

My score, however, was a shock. The good news? I had beaten motoring correspondent Quentin Willson. The bad? If this test could be failed, I was a failure. I averaged just 24.31mpg - 40% less efficient than the ideal score - and emitted 267g of carbon dioxide. Over a year (and 10,000 miles), my inefficient driving would cost me an extra £558.94 in fuel and, even worse, dump more than an extra tonne of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - 4,301kg in total.

Where had I gone so wrong? Despite trying to drive smoothly, I had braked and accelerated far more than necessary. The key to fuel efficient driving, Sale explains, is to keep your speed consistent. That requires concentration and anticipation. “It’s looking much further ahead, it’s lifting off the accelerator much earlier rather than keeping at the same speed and braking at the last moment.”

My acceleration should have been slower and steadier. “Imagine you’ve got an egg on the throttle and you don’t want to break it,” says Sale. Gear changes should have been smooth and progressive.

My supposedly fuel-saving habit of slipping the car into neutral to coast up to traffic lights was not only unsafe, but actually used more fuel than driving in gear. “What you really want to be doing is coasting in gear,” explains Sale, so that the engine is being turned over by the movement of the wheels. Put it in neutral and the engine has to use fuel to keep it idling.

Perhaps a green driving element should be added to the real driving test. At present, this test is too expensive to offer to the public although BP is touring the country to pass on green driving tips and bust some myths.

The biggest is that green driving slows you down. Despite driving 16mph faster than the optimum speed - 40mph in fifth gear - along the motorway section, just like the fabled hare I still finished the course more than a minute slower than the most economical drive because of my stop-start style. So the tortoise is not only more fuel efficient, it is faster too. “Everyone thinks that driving economically is driving slowly,” says Sale. “It isn’t. It’s driving smoothly. You can drive economically and get somewhere quickly as well”

How to get the most from your fuel

Shut your windows and turn off the air con

You can leave windows open at speeds below 40mph, where there is a minimal increase in fuel-sapping aerodynamic drag. Air con increases fuel consumption at all speeds.

Check your tyre pressure regularly

Under-inflated tyres increase the rolling resistance between the tyres and the road, causing you to use more fuel.

Remove car clutter

All of us tend to have unnecessary clutter - and weight - in cars. I’ve got a heavy box of maps. Removing these and roof rails when not in use can reduce fuel consumption.

Look further ahead

The key to fuel-efficient driving is driving smoothly. Better anticipation of hazards ahead means less needless acceleration and less sharp breaking. Coasting to a halt in gear is a big fuel saver.

Maintain your car

Change your air filter annually and ensure your engine is working effectively. Fuel companies claim you will get more miles from a tank of (more expensive) premium-grade fuel. This is said to improve engine combustion and enable the car to run more efficiently.

Stop driving

Everyone can cut down on short journeys. Short drives are uneconomical: when the engine is cold, it uses more fuel than when it reaches the optimum working temperature. Catalytic converters, which reduce exhaust emissions, are also less efficient when cold.

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The scale of the crisis facing Britain’s high streets was underlined in dramatic fashion yesterday as Woolworths revealed it was seeking a rescue takeover of its stores and Marks & Spencer slashed its prices by 20% in an attempt to pull in shoppers and shift unsold stock.

Woolworths is likely to get just £1 for its loss-making 800-store chain. The decision to seek a buyer for the shops in mid-November reveals that the chain is dangerously close to bankruptcy. It makes 90% of its profits in the six weeks before Christmas and should be raking in cash at this time of the year, selling Christmas goods and toys.

Marks & Spencer’s sale is its first pre-Christmas clearance for four years. The M&S boss Sir Stuart Rose has often criticised so-called “guerrilla sales” for antagonising shoppers who have paid the full price for the same merchandise.

However, M&S stores are opening at 8am today and many of the biggest outlets are staying open until midnight to give shoppers extra time to take advantage of lower prices.

Other retailers feeling the squeeze include Sports Direct, owned by the billionaire Mike Ashley, and DSG, formerly known as Dixons.

DSG’s shares lost 31% of their value yesterday, closing at just 15p. At that level the business has a value of just £275m - equal to about 10 days’ sales. The group is facing declining prices as well as fewer sales.

Retailers, who employ one in 10 of the UK workforce, are facing a perfect storm of trading problems: consumers have stopped spending as fears escalate about house prices and unemployment and the cost of buying in goods from overseas manufacturers is rising as a result of the fall in sterling. At the same time credit insurers, who protect suppliers from non-payment of invoices in the event of a retailer going bust, have stopped providing cover to some store chains.

One City retail specialist said the outlook for high street operators was exceptionally tough: “Christmas 2008 has the feel of being the worst retailing Christmas for many years.” Retail executives fear a series of financial crises and collapses in the coming weeks, especially with quarterly store rents due on December 24.

The grim news from the high street came as leading shares took a fresh tumble, losing nearly 5% of their value. The FTSE-100 closed down 202.87 pts at 4005.68.

Analysts say clothing sales have gone into steep decline in the last two weeks and M&S is not the first to slash prices at a time of the year when retailers hope to be selling at full price.

Debenhams is running a 25%-off threeday sale and Bhs, which offered 20% off everything a week ago, now has up to 50% off selected lines. Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia brands - which include Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge - are also said to be considering big price reductions.

City retail specialist Freddie George, at broker Seymour Pierce, said the M&S one-day reduction was “a clear sign that sales are well behind budget in the lead up to Christmas”. He is urging investors to sell M&S shares. Yesterday they sank to 200p - their lowest level for more than eight years. Just 18 months ago they were changing hands at 740p.

Sports Direct’s shares also hit a record low, losing 13% of their value to 32p. Investors who bought the shares when they came to the market less than two years ago have now seen 90% of their value wiped out.

Woolworths hopes to sell its stores to Hilco, a US-based group that specialises in distressed companies. Hilco may put the business into administration so that it can offload its unprofitable stores. That is likely to mean large job cuts among Woolworths’ 25,000 store workers.

Woolworths refused to comment but a source familiar with Hilco said: “You don’t get into bed with a group like Hilco unless things are pretty tight”.

Hilco would pay only a nominal sum for Woolworths, but would also take over some of the retailer’s near-£300m of debt. The store chain said a deal was not certain. Woolworths would retain its two other businesses, which distribute DVDs, books and music to other retailers.

The beleaguered retailer’s shares collapsed to just over 2p, valuing the 99-year- old retail group - a cornerstone of shopping centres in towns and cities throughout the country - at just £34m.

In recent years the chain has been squeezed by the supermarkets, internet retailers and specialist high street stores. But it remains a huge operation, with sales of about £3bn a year. It still sells more sweets than any other retailer and is among the top five in entertainment sales, toys, children’s clothing and homewares. Financially, however, it is on its knees. In the first six months of this year it crashed £100m into the red.

The new dip on the high street came as department store group John Lewis’s sales were last week down a huge 14% on 2007 levels. Sales have also gone into reverse at its online operation for the first time since JohnLewis.com started in 2001.

Store chains which have had at least some of their credit insurance removed include Woolworths, Debenhams, Currys, Focus, Poundstretcher, Ideal World and TJ Hughes. Without cover retailers have to pay for supplies upfront, in cash, rather than having the time to sell goods to customers before settling suppliers’ bills.

Yesterday a source close to Woolworths said the removal of its credit cover had been a key factor in its decision to seek a rescuer.

MPC mulled 2% cut

A fresh cut in interest rates looks likely next month after the Bank of England revealed its monetary policy committee considered cutting the cost of borrowing by more than the 1.5 percentage points reduction it announced two weeks ago. In a clear signal that a new cut is on the cards when the committee meets in two weeks, the minutes of the last meeting showed members believed “a very significant reduction in bank rate - possibly in excess of two percentage points - might be required”.

The City now expects a 0.5 cut, to leave rates at 2.5% - within sight of the all-time low of 2%.

The Bank said it wanted to see the size of Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report before assessing the scale of a further easing of monetary policy. The MPC said it also wanted to see whether October’s coordinated efforts to shore up banking had increased the flow of credit. It is concerned that a bigger cut in the bank rate would scare the City.

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The scale of the crisis facing Britain’s high streets was underlined in dramatic fashion yesterday as Woolworths revealed it was seeking a rescue takeover of its stores and Marks & Spencer slashed its prices by 20% in an attempt to pull in shoppers and shift unsold stock.

Woolworths is likely to get just £1 for its loss-making 800-store chain. The decision to seek a buyer for the shops in mid-November reveals that the chain is dangerously close to bankruptcy. It makes 90% of its profits in the six weeks before Christmas and should be raking in cash at this time of the year, selling Christmas goods and toys.

Marks & Spencer’s sale is its first pre-Christmas clearance for four years. The M&S boss Sir Stuart Rose has often criticised so-called “guerrilla sales” for antagonising shoppers who have paid the full price for the same merchandise.

However, M&S stores are opening at 8am today and many of the biggest outlets are staying open until midnight to give shoppers extra time to take advantage of lower prices.

Other retailers feeling the squeeze include Sports Direct, owned by the billionaire Mike Ashley, and DSG, formerly known as Dixons.

DSG’s shares lost 31% of their value yesterday, closing at just 15p. At that level the business has a value of just £275m - equal to about 10 days’ sales. The group is facing declining prices as well as fewer sales.

Retailers, who employ one in 10 of the UK workforce, are facing a perfect storm of trading problems: consumers have stopped spending as fears escalate about house prices and unemployment and the cost of buying in goods from overseas manufacturers is rising as a result of the fall in sterling. At the same time credit insurers, who protect suppliers from non-payment of invoices in the event of a retailer going bust, have stopped providing cover to some store chains.

One City retail specialist said the outlook for high street operators was exceptionally tough: “Christmas 2008 has the feel of being the worst retailing Christmas for many years.” Retail executives fear a series of financial crises and collapses in the coming weeks, especially with quarterly store rents due on December 24.

The grim news from the high street came as leading shares took a fresh tumble, losing nearly 5% of their value. The FTSE-100 closed down 202.87 pts at 4005.68.

Analysts say clothing sales have gone into steep decline in the last two weeks and M&S is not the first to slash prices at a time of the year when retailers hope to be selling at full price.

Debenhams is running a 25%-off threeday sale and Bhs, which offered 20% off everything a week ago, now has up to 50% off selected lines. Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia brands - which include Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge - are also said to be considering big price reductions.

City retail specialist Freddie George, at broker Seymour Pierce, said the M&S one-day reduction was “a clear sign that sales are well behind budget in the lead up to Christmas”. He is urging investors to sell M&S shares. Yesterday they sank to 200p - their lowest level for more than eight years. Just 18 months ago they were changing hands at 740p.

Sports Direct’s shares also hit a record low, losing 13% of their value to 32p. Investors who bought the shares when they came to the market less than two years ago have now seen 90% of their value wiped out.

Woolworths hopes to sell its stores to Hilco, a US-based group that specialises in distressed companies. Hilco may put the business into administration so that it can offload its unprofitable stores. That is likely to mean large job cuts among Woolworths’ 25,000 store workers.

Woolworths refused to comment but a source familiar with Hilco said: “You don’t get into bed with a group like Hilco unless things are pretty tight”.

Hilco would pay only a nominal sum for Woolworths, but would also take over some of the retailer’s near-£300m of debt. The store chain said a deal was not certain. Woolworths would retain its two other businesses, which distribute DVDs, books and music to other retailers.

The beleaguered retailer’s shares collapsed to just over 2p, valuing the 99-year- old retail group - a cornerstone of shopping centres in towns and cities throughout the country - at just £34m.

In recent years the chain has been squeezed by the supermarkets, internet retailers and specialist high street stores. But it remains a huge operation, with sales of about £3bn a year. It still sells more sweets than any other retailer and is among the top five in entertainment sales, toys, children’s clothing and homewares. Financially, however, it is on its knees. In the first six months of this year it crashed £100m into the red.

The new dip on the high street came as department store group John Lewis’s sales were last week down a huge 14% on 2007 levels. Sales have also gone into reverse at its online operation for the first time since JohnLewis.com started in 2001.

Store chains which have had at least some of their credit insurance removed include Woolworths, Debenhams, Currys, Focus, Poundstretcher, Ideal World and TJ Hughes. Without cover retailers have to pay for supplies upfront, in cash, rather than having the time to sell goods to customers before settling suppliers’ bills.

Yesterday a source close to Woolworths said the removal of its credit cover had been a key factor in its decision to seek a rescuer.

MPC mulled 2% cut

A fresh cut in interest rates looks likely next month after the Bank of England revealed its monetary policy committee considered cutting the cost of borrowing by more than the 1.5 percentage points reduction it announced two weeks ago. In a clear signal that a new cut is on the cards when the committee meets in two weeks, the minutes of the last meeting showed members believed “a very significant reduction in bank rate - possibly in excess of two percentage points - might be required”.

The City now expects a 0.5 cut, to leave rates at 2.5% - within sight of the all-time low of 2%.

The Bank said it wanted to see the size of Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report before assessing the scale of a further easing of monetary policy. The MPC said it also wanted to see whether October’s coordinated efforts to shore up banking had increased the flow of credit. It is concerned that a bigger cut in the bank rate would scare the City.

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It had all the trappings of a big political resignation. A snap press conference, screened on Sky News, hordes of journalists whispering conspiracy theories, Jeremy Paxman barking questions and an instant reaction from Lord Mandelson.

But yesterday’s hastily arranged media briefing was far more dramatic than affairs of state. It was an opportunity for the political broadcaster John Sergeant to explain to his bereft fans (and gleeful detractors) why he had taken the shock decision to leave Strictly Come Dancing.

It turned out that Mandelson, as is so often the case, had something to do with it. It was when the new business secretary came out as a fan that Sergeant knew it was time to bow out, he said yesterday at BBC Television Centre. The other catalyst for leaving, said Sergeant, was “when I noticed that the Times had done a leader on me”. Mainly, though, he said he had to go when he realised that he and his dance partner Kristina - a partnership he repeatedly referred to as a “machine” capable of “crushing” all comers - were doing perilously well. “There was a real danger I could win the show. Even for me that would be a joke too far,” he said.

But there was no way Paxman, installed on the front row, was taking that for an answer. “Are you a man or a mouse?” he bellowed, temporarily diverting the rage he usually reserves for prevaricating politicians on to his journalistic colleague. “Mice don’t dance like I have been dancing,” was Sergeant’s riposte.

Explaining why he was throwing in the towel, Sergeant said: “We had fun dancing, and dancing is a wonderfully enjoyable thing, but if the joke wears thin - if people begin to take things very seriously, and if people are getting so wound up that it is very difficult to carry on the joke - then it is time to go.” He had jumped, and was not pushed, the BBC confirmed. They had begged him to stay, but to no avail.

He will not be replaced by Cherie Lunghi, the contestant he deposed last Saturday. “No one could return to take his place,” said a spokeswoman. The schedules are not in disarray: the final will now simply feature two contestants instead of three.

Just like a Westminster abdication, within minutes of the announcement, the tributes rolled in. Leading the charge was - who else? - the Prince of Darkness himself. “John Sergeant should not bow out. He has become the people’s John Travolta and he should be a fighter, not a quitter,” said Mandelson.

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British police helped cover up a horrific sex abuse scandal at a Christian missionary orphanage in Albania, a Guardian investigation has found.

Senior officers agreed to keep details of abuse secret from their counterparts in Albania after the British director of the orphanage, David Brown, persuaded them that while children had been sexually abused in his care, he had played no part in it.

Brown, 57, an evangelical charity worker who founded the His Children orphanage seven years ago, was yesterday found guilty of “sexual relations” with minors.

Sentencing him to 20 years in a maximum-security jail in Albania, Judge Gerti Hoxha said the home had been used as “camouflage” for sexual abuse. He hoped the sentence would serve as a warning to other paedophiles.

Looking unstable on his feet, Brown was escorted from the courtroom.

Two other British helpers at the orphanage remain on trial for their alleged part in the abuse. Dino Christodoulou, 45, a social therapy nurse from Blackburn in Lancashire, and Robin Arnold, 56, a salesman from Cromer in Norfolk, were extradited to Albania from Britain in May. Brown’s shelter cared for 40 abandoned children and babies. It was raided by Albanian police in May 2006. Ten children, aged between four and 13, told Albanian police they had been sexually abused by Brown and the two Britons. In some cases the children claim to have been bound to a balcony, gagged and raped.

But an investigation has revealed that Britain’s National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) received details about abuse at the home 18 months earlier, in December 2004, and failed to tell their Albanian counterparts.

Brown gave members of NCIS, stationed in the region to fight organised crime, harrowing accounts of abuse suffered by boys at his home, but denied he was involved. Taking his word, officers decided not to inform Albanian police about the abuse.

Before speaking to the detectives, Brown sought advice from his friend Alan Moir, a retired police superintendent from Inverness. Moir, 64, who supported the running of the home, convened a meeting at a hotel in the capital with officers from NCIS. At that meeting Brown claimed that Christodoulou, whom he had allowed to return to Blackburn, had sexually abused the children behind his back. He did not say anything about Arnold’s alleged involvement and claimed to have had no prior knowledge that children were being harmed.

“We made a decision that we would not report [the abuse] to the authorities,” said Moir. “We knew what would happen - someone would be arrested and the children would be back on the street.”

Asked if that constituted a cover-up by those at the meeting, Moir replied: “That is a fair and accurate description. We kept it secret from the Albanians. But it wasn’t that we wanted to hide anything - we were trying to protect the children, open a new orphanage and make something good of this. That was my view at the time - it may have been wrong. Looking back I do feel misled by David. At the time I was under the impression that this was a bona fide home.”

NCIS contacted Lancashire police requesting they check the background of Christodoulou and ensure he was not looking after children. No checks were done on Arnold, who had two convictions for indecently assaulting boys stretching back to the 1980s, leaving him free to travel to Malawi on what he described as an aid mission, where he met children while preaching the Bible.

There were no attempts to rescue the Gypsy children at the orphanage, where Brown slept with boys in his bed.

“A lot of us were uncomfortable about what was going on in there,” said a pastor who agreed not to inform Albanian police about the shelter. ” But we believed David was a good man. And we didn’t want all the good work our churches were doing to be associated with David’s orphanage.”

By May 2006, Brown was under the impression that the attempted cover-up had succeeded and looked forward to opening another home under a new name. Moir took around €20,000 (£17,000) of his own money to Albania, which he said was for a deposit on land where they could construct the new shelter.

But for Brown, the game was up. Receiving a tip-off about a suspected paedophile ring operated from the home, Albanian authorities raided the ramshackle orphanage, arrested Brown and, some months later, extradited Christodoulou and Arnold to face trial in Tirana.

It was only then - 18 months after British law enforcement had been told about abuse at the orphanage - that a full criminal inquiry was opened.

A senior UK police source involved in that inquiry said he was “flabbergasted” to discover the abuse had been covered up by colleagues. “The very basis for child protection is: rescue the children,” he said. “The decisions that flowed from December 2004 were clearly a mistake. It endangered the lives of vulnerable children.”

In a statement, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which has taken over from NCIS, denied its officers were involved in a cover-up, pointing out that the allegations “precede the formation of Soca” and communication between Britain and Albanian law enforcement had since improved. “There has been no cover-up. The relationship with the Albanians in 2004 bears no comparison with the relationship Soca has developed since 2006. At the time, officers acted on the best advice available in the circumstances. The excellent relationship we now have has led to three UK nationals standing trial in Albania.”

Interviewed in prison before yesterday’s verdict, all three accused Britons told the Guardian that children had been abused at the home. But all denied their personal involvement in the abuse, instead blaming each other.

Christodoulou said the children had been encouraged to tells lies about him. “It was cruel for someone to use the children to spite me,” he said.

Arnold said that while he had indecently assaulted boys in the past, he too was innocent of the charges. “I am here because God is using me to pull these other bastards down,” he said.

The pair’s defence lawyers have questioned the validity of testimony given by the children, claiming they were “manipulated” by the prosecution.

Brown described Christodoulou and Arnold, whom he blamed for the abuse, as “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. He described his trial as “my day on the cross”. “I am the father of these children and I have a duty under God to defend them,” he said.

Trial and terror

1999 Brown travels to Albania to help refugees from Kosovo and, in Tirana, encounters abandoned Gypsy children.

2001 Vowing to help, Brown returns to open the His Children orphanage, above, initially providing shelter and Bible lessons to a handful of children.

2002 Dino Christodoulou moves to Tirana to work at the orphanage. Robin Arnold begins visiting the home and has unsupervised access to some children.

October 2004 British police are told about sexual abuse. They agree not to tell their Albanian colleagues. Brown continues to run the home.

May 2006 Albanian police receive a tip-off. Brown is arrested and extradition requests are made for Christodoulou and Arnold.

November 2008 Brown is jailed. Christodoulou and Arnold remain on trial.

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British police helped cover up a horrific sex abuse scandal at a Christian missionary orphanage in Albania, a Guardian investigation has found.

Senior officers agreed to keep details of abuse secret from their counterparts in Albania after the British director of the orphanage, David Brown, persuaded them that while children had been sexually abused in his care, he had played no part in it.

Brown, 57, an evangelical charity worker who founded the His Children orphanage seven years ago, was yesterday found guilty of “sexual relations” with minors.

Sentencing him to 20 years in a maximum-security jail in Albania, Judge Gerti Hoxha said the home had been used as “camouflage” for sexual abuse. He hoped the sentence would serve as a warning to other paedophiles.

Looking unstable on his feet, Brown was escorted from the courtroom.

Two other British helpers at the orphanage remain on trial for their alleged part in the abuse. Dino Christodoulou, 45, a social therapy nurse from Blackburn in Lancashire, and Robin Arnold, 56, a salesman from Cromer in Norfolk, were extradited to Albania from Britain in May. Brown’s shelter cared for 40 abandoned children and babies. It was raided by Albanian police in May 2006. Ten children, aged between four and 13, told Albanian police they had been sexually abused by Brown and the two Britons. In some cases the children claim to have been bound to a balcony, gagged and raped.

But an investigation has revealed that Britain’s National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) received details about abuse at the home 18 months earlier, in December 2004, and failed to tell their Albanian counterparts.

Brown gave members of NCIS, stationed in the region to fight organised crime, harrowing accounts of abuse suffered by boys at his home, but denied he was involved. Taking his word, officers decided not to inform Albanian police about the abuse.

Before speaking to the detectives, Brown sought advice from his friend Alan Moir, a retired police superintendent from Inverness. Moir, 64, who supported the running of the home, convened a meeting at a hotel in the capital with officers from NCIS. At that meeting Brown claimed that Christodoulou, whom he had allowed to return to Blackburn, had sexually abused the children behind his back. He did not say anything about Arnold’s alleged involvement and claimed to have had no prior knowledge that children were being harmed.

“We made a decision that we would not report [the abuse] to the authorities,” said Moir. “We knew what would happen - someone would be arrested and the children would be back on the street.”

Asked if that constituted a cover-up by those at the meeting, Moir replied: “That is a fair and accurate description. We kept it secret from the Albanians. But it wasn’t that we wanted to hide anything - we were trying to protect the children, open a new orphanage and make something good of this. That was my view at the time - it may have been wrong. Looking back I do feel misled by David. At the time I was under the impression that this was a bona fide home.”

NCIS contacted Lancashire police requesting they check the background of Christodoulou and ensure he was not looking after children. No checks were done on Arnold, who had two convictions for indecently assaulting boys stretching back to the 1980s, leaving him free to travel to Malawi on what he described as an aid mission, where he met children while preaching the Bible.

There were no attempts to rescue the Gypsy children at the orphanage, where Brown slept with boys in his bed.

“A lot of us were uncomfortable about what was going on in there,” said a pastor who agreed not to inform Albanian police about the shelter. ” But we believed David was a good man. And we didn’t want all the good work our churches were doing to be associated with David’s orphanage.”

By May 2006, Brown was under the impression that the attempted cover-up had succeeded and looked forward to opening another home under a new name. Moir took around €20,000 (£17,000) of his own money to Albania, which he said was for a deposit on land where they could construct the new shelter.

But for Brown, the game was up. Receiving a tip-off about a suspected paedophile ring operated from the home, Albanian authorities raided the ramshackle orphanage, arrested Brown and, some months later, extradited Christodoulou and Arnold to face trial in Tirana.

It was only then - 18 months after British law enforcement had been told about abuse at the orphanage - that a full criminal inquiry was opened.

A senior UK police source involved in that inquiry said he was “flabbergasted” to discover the abuse had been covered up by colleagues. “The very basis for child protection is: rescue the children,” he said. “The decisions that flowed from December 2004 were clearly a mistake. It endangered the lives of vulnerable children.”

In a statement, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which has taken over from NCIS, denied its officers were involved in a cover-up, pointing out that the allegations “precede the formation of Soca” and communication between Britain and Albanian law enforcement had since improved. “There has been no cover-up. The relationship with the Albanians in 2004 bears no comparison with the relationship Soca has developed since 2006. At the time, officers acted on the best advice available in the circumstances. The excellent relationship we now have has led to three UK nationals standing trial in Albania.”

Interviewed in prison before yesterday’s verdict, all three accused Britons told the Guardian that children had been abused at the home. But all denied their personal involvement in the abuse, instead blaming each other.

Christodoulou said the children had been encouraged to tells lies about him. “It was cruel for someone to use the children to spite me,” he said.

Arnold said that while he had indecently assaulted boys in the past, he too was innocent of the charges. “I am here because God is using me to pull these other bastards down,” he said.

The pair’s defence lawyers have questioned the validity of testimony given by the children, claiming they were “manipulated” by the prosecution.

Brown described Christodoulou and Arnold, whom he blamed for the abuse, as “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. He described his trial as “my day on the cross”. “I am the father of these children and I have a duty under God to defend them,” he said.

Trial and terror

1999 Brown travels to Albania to help refugees from Kosovo and, in Tirana, encounters abandoned Gypsy children.

2001 Vowing to help, Brown returns to open the His Children orphanage, above, initially providing shelter and Bible lessons to a handful of children.

2002 Dino Christodoulou moves to Tirana to work at the orphanage. Robin Arnold begins visiting the home and has unsupervised access to some children.

October 2004 British police are told about sexual abuse. They agree not to tell their Albanian colleagues. Brown continues to run the home.

May 2006 Albanian police receive a tip-off. Brown is arrested and extradition requests are made for Christodoulou and Arnold.

November 2008 Brown is jailed. Christodoulou and Arnold remain on trial.

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Rachida Dati, petite in her trademark black suit and high heels, bursts into the gilded dining room of her justice ministry, late for breakfast. She beams her famous “Plexiglass smile” - polite but guarded - and flashes a look that says, “I’m not finished yet.” Dati is a French icon, Nicolas Sarkozy’s hand-picked symbol of change: the first Muslim woman to hold a major government post. She adores appearing on magazine covers but is defensive in briefings, bristling at critics and, when cornered, she repeats her unfailing devotion to her mentor Sarkozy and his right-wing policies. She doesn’t like being constantly reminded of her improbable rise from poverty against all the odds of French discrimination, and hates being called the Cinderella of the housing estates. But she keeps her family close. At one of Sarkozy’s early Elysée parties, as Dati mingled wearing haute couture, I met her father, Mbark, a retired Moroccan builder, sitting at the edge of the grand Salle des Fêtes observing the great and the good sip champagne. Dati’s brother, Jamal, had recently been jailed for dealing drugs and Dati Sr, a severe disciplinarian, was torn between the huge disappointment at his criminal son and joy over his daughter, the justice minister. “I think of Rachida, not Jamal,” he said.

Dati has been hailed as the nearest thing France’s fractured society has to Barack Obama. The French justice minister was raised in poverty on a housing estate in deepest Burgundy. Sarkozy said appointing her sent a message “to all the children of France that with merit and effort everything becomes possible”. He also hoped it would neutralise the bad feeling after the riots on the run-down housing estates and his comment likening the wayward youths to scum.

Despite scepticism that this “window-dressing” at the top did little to change the discrimination poisoning French society, Dati immediately became one of the most popular figures in France. The speed of her rise has been staggering. But that of her fall could be too. The Dati fairytale has started to go spectacularly wrong.

This autumn, aged 42 and single, Dati announced that she was pregnant and would not name the father or elaborate on her “complicated” private life, which in recent years has seen her linked to two millionaire businessmen. The former Spanish prime minister, José María Aznar, and the French junior sports minister and former rugby coach, Bernard Laporte, denied the child was theirs. It was seized on by international celebrity magazines and has become the stuff of satire and low jokes in Paris political circles.

Dati’s baby is due in January and her pregnancy has coincided with another major crisis at her justice ministry. Magistrates have taken to the streets in protest at what they see as botched reforms and government interference in the independence of the judiciary. Yesterday, in an unprecedented move, over 500 magistrates and judges signed a letter to Dati attacking her “incoherent policies”. France’s dire prisons are so overcrowded and fetid that murder and suicide are rife. Prison wardens have threatened action and a succession of Dati’s advisers have quit. There has been speculation that Dati could use the birth of her child as an excuse to leave politics, or that she could be moved by Sarkozy, who some sense, has left his protégée to hang out to dry. But sacking a minister on maternity leave is out of the question. And Dati is so much part of the president’s image and so deeply entwined in his own complicated private life, that to demote her would also damage him.Privately she says she wants to stay and fight on in the justice ministry, dismissive of the Elysée intrigues and what she feels are attacks by the white, conservative elite. Maternity leave, she says, is for wimps. She will be back at her desk within three weeks of the birth.

Dati grew up on the outskirts of the provincial town of Chalons-sur-Saône. She was the second of 12 children born to Mbark and Fatim-Zohra, an an illiterate Algerian. Her parents struggled to make ends meet, sewing their children’s clothes out of curtain fabric that Rachida complained made them look like they were in a cult. The first building site Mbark worked on in France was a Catholic convent school. He went to the headteacher and asked if his two oldest daughters, Malika and Rachida, could be admitted. The mother superior was astonished but agreed, cautioning that he would have to pay the modest fees. It was here that Dati forged her fierce will to succeed. Anything less than top of the class was seen as a failure. She would help adults in her council block write letters and fill out forms, order children to stop playing and do homework: she would give presentations about Islam to her Catholic class. From 16, she stacked up a dizzying number of part-time jobs to help support the family: selling Avon beauty products door to door, selling sausages, working at a service station and on a supermarket checkout. When she left for university in Dijon to study economics she worked nights as a hospital assistant, sending money home.

Dati’s friends call her a consummate networker. As a student, she scoured newspapers, picking out business leaders and politicians and bombarding them with letters asking for advice, internships and jobs. It worked: she soon had a job as an auditor in Paris and a posse of supportive business leaders and even cabinet ministers mentoring her. At 27, she briefly returned to Burgundy to marry an Algerian engineer chosen by her family. In the ceremony at the town hall, when asked for her “I do”, her mumbled answer was unintelligible and three years later she persuaded the courts to annul the marriage on the basis of lack of consent. Her escape from that mysterious arrangement - on which she refuses to elaborate - would later further endear her to the French republican elite wedded to the stereotype of Muslim women held in bondage by their men and their faith.

On the advice of her new mentor, Simone Veil, the revered holocaust survivor and former minister, she trained as a magistrate and practised for a short period until she focused on her most important networking target: Sarkozy. In 2002 he became minister of the interior and she deluged him with letters. He was astonished at her tenacity and ordered his team to find her a minor advisory post.

“At the start, I said, ‘What are you doing with Sarkozy?’ He was on the right, it wasn’t the obvious choice of someone from our background,” says Morad Aït-Habbouche, Dati’s best friend. “She said, ‘He’s surprised me, he’s very active on changing things, on diversity.’ Her career is really tied up with Sarkozy. She says her destiny is linked to his. They are similar in some ways - he has some immigrant roots, although it’s always easier to be from Europe than the Magreb.”

Aït-Habbouche became friends with Dati during one of her early networking drives. He was one of the very few French TV reporters with an Algerian name and she wrote to him saying she liked what he stood for. They both grew up with discrimination, no public role models, and the dead weight of the war in Algeria still hanging over French society. Together, they founded the 21st Century Club, a networking group for young people from diverse backgrounds. “Rachida never wanted to go into politics,” he says. “I always thought she had all the qualities to be one of the first MPs with immigrant roots, but she said no. Then she met Sarkozy and decided he was the right person to follow.”

Dati’s attempts to emulate Sarkozy even extends to the president’s trademark jogging.

“She got into running when she went on holiday with his family. She started doing 30-minute stints, now she can do two and a half hours. She’s got amazing strength,” says Aït-Habbouche. He used to run with her in Paris, where, like a Parisian Rocky, she’d race up the steps of the Trocadero.

Dati was drawn to Sarkozy by his “rage”. “There’s something in me that echoes with him, a mirror effect. Like me, he can’t bear to be humiliated,” she has said. Both feel themselves to be outsiders, her because of her background, him because of the foreign-sounding Hungarian surname he says haunted him and the fact that he didn’t study in Paris’s elite graduate schools. He also feels deeply self-conscious about his absent father following his parents’ divorce when he was a child, which set him apart from his bourgeois peers in western Paris.

It was Sarkozy’s first wife, Cécilia who suggested he pluck Dati from the obscurity of her post as a little-known ministry adviser and appoint her spokeswoman for his presidential campaign at the end of 2006. Without experience of working within Sarkozy’s UMP party or ever having run for elected office, Dati was thrust forward as his main spokeswoman on TV. Her appointment wrong-footed the French left’s white elite. Dati was a huge media success, arguing Sarkozy’s rightwing views from carefully prepared scripts. She was also given the job of improving Sarkozy’s image on the housing estates, despite growing up in provincial France with a private convent education that bore little resemblance to the crowded high-rise ghettos outside Paris. Tarik Mouadane, then 25, the son of a Moroccan cleaner from troubled Argenteuil, attended meetings with her at the ministry in Paris. “She always said to me, never forget where you came from,” he says. “It was difficult for her. She cried over people in the party who felt she shouldn’t have been where she was.”

From the start, however, Dati was at the heart of the Sarkozy’s soap opera of a marriage to Cécilia - something that would later undermine her. She built a close friendship with Cécilia, who called her “my sister”. Dati stayed faithful to Cécilia during the couple’s first public split before the election campaign, and then enjoyed Cécilia’s public backing on her return. When Sarkozy won the presidency and made Dati justice minister, she initially continued to be associated in the public eye with the Sarkozys’ expensive tastes and social life. She went on holiday with the couple to Wolfeboro in the US. She appeared on the cover of a celebrity magazine on the arm of the Dior designer John Galliano. She posed in Dior dresses on the cover of Paris Match. “She even went to film-wrap parties,” said one insider on the Paris scene.

When the Sarkozys’ marriage began to break up, Dati went on every official presidential trip as a kind of surrogate first lady. She was lampooned in France for her ostentatious outfits, such as a floor-length Dior gown and fur at the White House, where she was the only minister allowed to follow Sarkozy into the main entrance. Why do you go on all these trips, I asked her at her ministry one morning when criticism of her jet setting was mounting. “I like seeing the world at the highest level,” she shot back.

When Cécilia finally filed for divorce, Dati was left vulnerable. The sniping began almost immediately. One of the first books about Sarkozy’s whirlwind courtship of his third wife, Carla Bruni, described how Bruni once passed the bedroom of the Elysée palace with Dati and said: “You would have liked to occupy it, wouldn’t you?” Bruni would later reportedly ask Dati not to call her husband early every morning.

With Dati now distanced from Sarkozy’s inner circle, she has nowhere to hide. With little money at her disposal, and a raft of tough law and order bills to push through, the justice ministry was always going to be a fraught post. France was already reeling from a miscarriage of justice scandal, and UN Human Rights Committee and Council of Europe reports accusing prisons of being dirty, degrading and inhumane. Some have twice as many inmates as they were designed for, with many prisoners forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor. There have been more than 90 suicides in prisons this year.

Yet Dati sees herself as Sarkozy’s “little soldier”, faithfully carrying out his zero-tolerance policies. She has implemented Sarkozy’s plan to shut a series of provincial courts and cut costs. She has pushed through his drive to clamp down on reoffenders, recommending stiffer sentences to judges. But relations between her and magistrates are now so bad that Sarkozy was forced to take over and meet the magistrates’ union himself. “Rachida Dati meets us, but she doesn’t listen to us,” said Christophe Régnard, a magistratewho leads the biggest union. “When you put things to her, she says simply, ‘No, that’s not true.’ When you say the Council of Europe has said it, she still says, ‘No, that’s not true.’ It’s not possible to work like that.”

Sarkozy does not feel let down by Dati as a minister - she has implemented his reforms, and more quickly than most of her colleagues. “He’s more let down by the fact she hasn’t succeeded in imposing herself politically,” says Bruno Jeudy, co-author of Sarkozy and His Women, which explores the Sarkozy-Dati relationship. “It’s as if she climbed to power too fast with no political grounding.”

In France, it is common for presidents to pluck ministers from non-political life, such as the former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, who had never held elected office. But it makes these ministers vulnerable. This year, Sarkozy encouraged Dati to run as mayor for his centre-right party in the safe, chic seventh arrondissement on Paris’s left bank. He felt it would give her elected legitimacy. Despite the safe seat, she did not win the expected vast majority and was only elected on the second round.

Dati, like her mentor Sarkozy, attacks when she feels wronged. She says that opposition to her at the justice ministry comes from a reactionary, conservative white ruling class who resent her presence. Her place in the French cabinet is undoubtedly a historic moment in the political life of a country still riven by racial discrimination. Mainland France currently has only one non-white MP and, in a recent poll, 80% of French people said they might vote for a black person at president, but only 58% could bring themselves to vote for one of millions of the French citizens of Algerian, Moroccan or Tunisian descent. As a role model, Dati is perhaps not the easiest person to warm to. But her appointment under the patronage of Sarkozy, and more importantly her survival, which now rests entirely on his whim, shows the real depths of the problem for minorities in France, who feel they are not being allowed to rise of their own accord. Fadela Amara, another woman of Algerian parentage whom Sarkozy appointed as a junior minister, says an Obama would have got nowhere in France. “It couldn’t happen in France unless Sarkozy turned emperor and appointed a black president himself,” she says.

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