The week at a glance ... Europe

Reykjavik, Iceland

Comedian’s party wins: A self-described “anarcho-surrealist” party, led by Iceland’s most famous comedian, has won the largest share of votes in local elections in the capital, Reykjavik. Jon Gnarr’s Best Party took six of 15 city council seats with a campaign video that featured the party’s candidates—most of them actors or comedians—singing Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best.” The Best platform calls for providing free towels at all swimming pools and erecting a roller coaster at the airport. “We only want what is best,” Gnarr promised. “If we didn’t, we’d be called the Worst Party or the Bad Party.” Analysts say the results show voters’ disgust with Iceland’s traditional parties, which presided over the country’s slide into bankruptcy.

London

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

New government, new scandal: A widely admired Cabinet minister resigned this week in a scandal over his use of a housing allowance to pay rent to his gay partner. David Laws, the treasury secretary, was one of the few Liberal Democrats in the top echelons of the new coalition government of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. He quit after the Daily Telegraph revealed that the person listed as his landlord on claims forms was actually his lover. Under British law, lawmakers can’t claim second-home expenses when the owner of the home is a relative or a long-term partner. Laws, who was not publicly out as gay before the article appeared, issued a public apology. But he said he hadn’t thought the residence rule applied because he and his partner maintained separate bank accounts and did not “treat each other as spouses.”