So Here's What I Should Have Done Yesterday.

On Saturday May 14th Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) the French head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was arrested in New York for allegedly attempting to rape, sexually assaulting and kidnapping a chamber maid who was trying to clean his hotel room. Obviously this is a very difficult subject to talk about because while there is clearly a case to answer Mr Strauss-Kahn still has the right to a fair trial. Given the politically charged nature of his job even this will be a near impossible task for New York's state Supreme Court.

The IMF is essentially the regulator for the global economy making it's head one of the most important people in the world. All of the worlds major financial issues like the reconstruction of Haiti, the stability of the Egyptian economy, the Eurozone bailouts and even the US budget argument cross their desk at some point and they attend all the major international summits such as the G8 and the World Economic Forum. Although Strauss-Kahn was intending to leave the job at the end of the year anyway his arrest has left the IMF leaderless and plunged discussions over the second bailout for the Greek economy into chaos as the USA, the EU and the BRIC nations argue over who should replace him. In itself this isn't actually much of a problem because DSK displayed a problematic attitude during the negotiations over the Irish bailout and the first Greek bailout which he was an architect of can hardly be described as a success. Also with the IMF out of the game much of the European debate over the Greek bailout has now focused on the European Central Bank (ECB) which has obstinately been blocking the some form of debt restructuring that Greece clearly needs. The only real worry is that DSK's departure has opened the door to failed British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown to replace him and Brown's politics really make him an inappropriate person to head an international economic body. Likewise Christine Lagarde would be the wrong person for this job at this time.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest will be most keenly felt in his home country though because it has prevented him standing as the Socialist Party but really centre ground candidate in the 2012 French Presidential election. As a result that election will now become a two way fight between the aggressively right wing Nicholas Sarkozy and the French National Front who like the British National Front are just out and out fascists. As there is just no way that Socialist Party votes will transfer to the National Front this pretty much guarantees that Sarkozy will be re-elected as President.

So great is the political impact of Strauss-Kahn's arrest that it has led to a huge number of conspiracy theories that it was a political sting by the Americans to remove him from the head of the IMF. At first this seems totally ridiculous because the IMF is a very US dominated organisation so if America wanted to remove Strauss-Kahn they wouldn't need to go to these lengths. However the wider impacts that the arrest have had on the Eurozone and the French election do make me suspicious. Although I can think of no good reason why the Americans would want to sabotage the Eurozone or want to keep an increasingly hostile Sarkozy as President of France I am aware that the Americans, especially the Republicans, are still overly reliant on Britain for information. In the past this has led to America making a series of self damaging choices on issues such as Libya and quantitative easing. So the question I'll need to have answered before I completely rule out conspiracy is whether or not the Americans have realised it's time to cut Britain loose.

As to what has happened after the arrest the way that the New York State Court has handled the case has given many people the impression that the prosecution is politically motivated which has in turn increased pressure on the American President and Federal Government ahead of the Obama / Netanyahu Summit and Obama's European tour. In part the way the Court has handled the case has been influenced by the scandal over the British Lord Chief Justice, Ken Clarke's comments on rape on May 18th. Conversely some people in France have been blaming the whole thing on the Russians. This either shows Israeli influence after the fact or shows that the French are trying to make it look like Israeli influence. At this point I am genuinely not sure either way because I think we can all agree that yesterday did not go well.