“People shouldn’t stay together if the conditions aren’t the same as when things started. It’s easy to fall in love and more difficult to stay together,” he said in Paris this weekend. “I am for the respect of member states, respect between the institutions and member states. I am against all forms of grovelling.”

Mr Juncker, whose appointment to the EU’s top job was opposed by David Cameron, told an elite audience of French officials that he was ready to discuss British demands for treaty change, but set out “red lines”. In a blow to the Prime Minister, the commission president said the EU would reject, without debate, Conservative calls to change treaties to give national authorities more powers to stop-large scale inflows of migrants from Eastern Europe.

“When one mentions the end of the free circulation of workers, there can be no debate, dialogue or compromise,” he said. “We can fight against abuses but the EU won’t change the treaties to satisfy the whim of certain politicians.” Opinion polls show a narrow lead in support for a British exit from the EU ahead of May’s general election.

Europe's "crisis of democracy" is a gap between elites and voters, EIU says. There is "a gaping hole at the heart of European politics where big ideas should be", it adds. Low turnouts at the polls and sharp falls in the membership of traditional parties are key factors in the phenomenon. The United Kingdom - going to the polls in May - is "on the cusp of a potentially prolonged period of political instability", according to the Economist researchers. They say there is a much higher than usual chance that the election will produce an unstable government - predicting that the populist UK Independence Party (UKIP) will take votes from both the Conservatives and Labour.

But the most immediate political challenge - and test of how far the growing populism translates into success at the polls - is in Greece. A snap general election takes place there on 25 January, triggered by parliament's failure to choose a new president in December. Opinion polls suggest that the far left, populist Syriza could emerge as the strongest party. If it did and was able to form a government, the EIU says this would send shock waves through the European Union and act as a catalyst for political upheaval elsewhere.

"The election of a Syriza government would be highly destabilising, both domestically and regionally. It would almost certainly trigger a crisis in the relationship between Greece and its international creditors, as debt write-offs form one of the core planks of its policy platform," the EIU says. "With similar anti-establishment parties gaining ground rapidly in a number of other countries scheduled to hold elections in 2015, the spill-over effects from a further period of Greek turmoil could be significant."

Other examples of European elections with potential for unpredictable results cited by EIU include polls in Denmark, Finland, Spain, France, Sweden, Germany and Ireland. "There is a common denominator in these countries: the rise of populist parties," the EIU says,

The group has been training new recruits and defectors from smaller rebel factions in Qalamoun, a militarily strategically important province in the south-west of Syria that borders Lebanon. Several of those smaller rebel groupings, some aligned with the more moderate "Free Syrian Army", have capitulated to the jihadists in recent months with many of their fighters joining Isil.

The growth of the group in the area means Sunni Isil fighters in Syria are now at the edge of the Lebanese heartland of its Shia arch enemy Hizbollah, whose men are fighting alongside the regime of Bashar al-Assad. “The moderate rebel groups on the border have collapsed, and their men have joined Isil,” said Ahmed Flity, the deputy mayor of Arsal, a Lebanese border town that has effectively been cut off from the rest of the country by security forces, because of the threat from jihadists in the area.

Denmark is the last major economy to peg its currency - the krone - to the euro, and has conducted a fixed exchange rate policy since the 1930s. Investors thought there was next to no chance that the Swiss central bank would remove its de facto peg on the franc. They do not want to be burned a second time if Denmark’s National Bank (DNB) takes similar steps.

“DNB appears under similar pressure to the Swiss National Bank,” said Capital Economics. As with the franc, investors have piled into the Danish krone in the belief that it is a safe asset, especially as a eurozone quantitative easing programme has grown more likely.

Under Mr Draghi’s watch, the eurozone has entered deflation, with prices in the currency bloc falling by an average of 0.2 percent in the year to December. Analysts fear that if the ECB does not announce a QE package, eurozone prices will fall faster still, prompting a deflationary spiral from which it would be hard to emerge. Several investment banks expect that Mr Draghi will unveil a European version of the quantitative easing schemes that have proved successful in the US and UK.

Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citi and a former UK interest-rate setter, said that the chances of a QE announcement this week are “highly likely, almost certain”. However, the fear remains that the scheme will “not be enough to get the show on the road, [and] will do little to prevent further bouts of deflation”, he added. Political turbulence in Greece has muddled the picture for the ECB. The country is due to go to the polls on January 25, and the hard-left Syriza remains favourite to win.

The party could lead the country out of the currency bloc in protest at EU-imposed austerity measures. This has raised concerns among the eurozone’s hawkish element about the risks of shouldering any Greek debt through an ECB bond-buying scheme, as a “Grexit” would almost certainly be followed by a sudden default.

Previous media reports said “several terabytes” of data was stolen, but according to the new documents published by the German magazine Der Spiegel last week, the actual amount was far higher, at 50 terabytes – the equivalent of five Libraries of Congress. The data – reportedly used by China to build their own advanced fighter jets – includes detailed engine schematics and radar design.

F-35 blueprints are just a fraction of what Chinese hackers have allegedly stolen from the Pentagon’s data vaults over the years. The reported haul includes some two dozen advanced weapon systems, including the AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense System, Littoral Combat Ship designs and emerging railgun technology, a classified report revealed in 2013. Edward Snowden, a former NSA employee, leaked thousands of classified documents to various media outlets in 2013.

The focus of the leaks was on massive electronic surveillance programs by the agency and its allies across the globe. The US government wants to prosecute Snowden for espionage, but for many he is a heroic figure standing up for privacy and government transparency. He is currently living in Russia, which granted him political asylum after he was stranded in a Moscow airport when the US revoked his passport.

The judge has previously faced criticism for a hearing at Derby county court in which he ordered three children to be taken away from their parents after a hearing lasting just 15 minutes. Court transcripts seen by The Telegraph show that Judge Orrell discussed his own Catholic faith during the course of the hearing into contact arrangements for Steve’s two sons.

The legal requirement to attend mass at Christmas applies only to Steve, who is not a Roman Catholic. His ex-wife is Catholic but is not subject to the same conditions in the residence and contact order. Steve, a 51-year-old psychologist, said: “It’s all very bizarre. This aspect of the contact order was not requested by the other side in the case. What I think is really concerning is that it does not allow me or my children any freedom of religious expression.”

“I am definitely not Catholic. The last time I went to church was some time ago and it was a Unitarian church that I attended. My oldest son, who is now 10, has already expressed a clear lack of belief but legally I am required to take him to Roman Catholic mass at Christmas.”

"Mr Hsieh was a regular customer here and always played for consecutive days", an employee told the paper. "When tired, he would sleep face-down on the table or doze off slumped in his chair. That is why we were not aware of his condition in the beginning." On January 1, a 38-year-old man was found dead in an Internet cafe in Taipei after five straight days of playing computer games.

In both incidents, police have expressed their displeasure at the apparent disinterest of fellow game-players in the arcades. "We went inside to cordon off the tables and we had investigators there to gather evidence," a police spokesman said. "Only then did the other patrons realise that someone had died, but they still showed no concern and kept playing their games. We were amazed at their nonchalant attitude."

It turned out that while in the playground Elliott had approached a four-year-old boy and asked him whether he was ‘brown because he was from Africa’. On returning home, the younger boy had told his mother about the comment, and she had informed the school, hoping that they could have a quiet word with Elliott.

Instead, the school’s anti-racism policy swung into action in full force. At a meeting with Elliott’s teacher and the deputy head of Griffin Primary School in Hull, Ms White was asked to read a copy of the school rules, and in particular its zero-tolerance policy on racism. ‘I was told I would have to sign a form acknowledging my son had made a racist remark, which would be submitted to the local education authority for further investigation,’ she said. ‘I refused to sign it, and I told the teacher that in no way did I agree the comment was racist. My son is inquisitive. He always likes to ask questions, but that doesn’t make him a racist.’

It was a point echoed by Karl Turner, Labour MP for Kingston-upon-Hull East. ‘It seems the matter has been taken out of all proportion, and common sense seems to have gone completely out of the window,’ he said. No doubt that is a conclusion that most right-thinking people would also reach. But the reality is that across the country each year, thousands of children as young or even younger than Elliott are being branded racists, homophobes and bigots over minor school squabbles, or even innocent questions.

A look around the globe reveals an unprecedented pattern of persecution that has shifted from isolated incidents of hostility to a systematic campaign to exterminate Christians in places where they have lived peacefully for centuries.

From the kidnapped school girls and massacres in Nigeria and the displacement of thousands in the Central African Republic, to the believers arrested for having a Bible study in Central Asia, to Meriam Ibrahim being sentenced to death in Sudan, to the ISIS slaughters, to the couple burned alive for blasphemy and hundreds of girls kidnapped in Pakistan, Christians throughout the world saw a major escalation in persecution in 2014.

The Jerusalem Post has spoken of “the religious cleansing of Middle East Christians” and noted that “anti-Christian violence in 2014 saw a transformation from under-told news coverage, to routine reports of radical Islamists seeking to obliterate Christianity’s presence.” Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, said that “persecution” no longer adequately describes the treatment of Christians in a growing number of Muslim areas. “Religious cleansing, a type of cultural genocide, which is a crime against humanity, is the more accurate description,” she said. “This is now occurring in Iraq, Syria, parts of Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia and Pakistan.”

So as Islamic extremists try to eradicate Christianity in its birthplace, and still others attempt to stamp it out in where it is growing fastest — Africa and China — the west seems somewhat complacent, and rests on the sacrifices of prior generations. Moreover, the western response seems often what has been called the “embarrassed silence of Christians in face of anti-Christian persecution.” The true tragedy would be for those who take their religious freedom for granted to become numb to the sufferings of their brothers and sisters who are shedding their blood in faithfulness to their beliefs.

Subsequently, I took a rather childish pleasure in continually referring to the European “project”, whatever its current nomenclature, as the “Holy Roman Empire”. Now, suddenly, I find myself in agreement with Will Hutton who also sees the EU as the successor to the HRE! There the agreement ends, because he apparently finds this laudable.

Is this really the best we can do? For centuries, there has been a fixation with some mythic ideal of the Roman Empire – its codes of laws, “Pax Romana” and so on, and the HRE was just one of the futile efforts to turn back the clock. Of course there are all manner of national and international problems that need co-operation and resolution, but over 200 years since Napoleon did us all a favour by getting rid of the thing, is bringing it back the most forward-thinking idea that the third millennium has to offer?

Does this mean we are facing another intifada? Shikaki, ever the cautious academic, refused to speculate. However, he told us about a poll he had conducted in the summer of 2000. This was immediately after the failure of the talks in Camp David and the unilateral Israeli pullout from Lebanon. For the Palestinians, these events signified that the political-diplomatic avenue was leading nowhere: for them, it was Hezbollah’s armed struggle that had kicked Israel off Arab land. It took Ariel Sharon’s trip to Temple Mount to spark the Second Intifada.

Shikaki reminded us that two equivalent prerequisites are in place today: the collapse of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace efforts and the war in Gaza, perceived by the Palestinians as a Hamas victory. According to Shikaki’s recent polls, more than 80 percent of Palestinians believe that Israel aims to harm the Muslim sites on Temple Mount and that this “extreme worry about Israel’s agenda for al Haram al Sharif drives greater support for violence.”