It hurts me more than it hurts you

Elsa Fornero, Minister for Welfare in Mario Monti's 'technocrat' government, has burst into tears while making an announcement on pensions. A university lecturer in normal life, Ms Fornero was explaining that there would no longer be inflation adjustment for pensions worth more than €1,000 per month. As she was trying to mouth the word 'sacrifices' it all became too much.

Way to go, Elsa, as our American cousins would say.

I'm afraid even worse things than this are going to happen in Italy, and elsewhere, and we desperately need people who can exhibit real pain in public. I always think George Osborne's 'we're all in this together' doesn't seem to carry sufficient conviction. He needs to get in touch with Ms Fornero and discover the technique, be it the onion, the ammonia or the vaseline round the eyes.

There is a sort of suffering-chic coming into play in European politics and someone - Silvio Berlusconi would have been ideal but I suggest the well-fed José Manuel Barroso of the European Commission - needs to offer up something really ghastly for the public's delight, such as the need to sacrifice the young first-born, and burn their emaciated bodies for soap, while beating his breast and hitting his head on the laquered rococo table.

Only then will we feel our political class is suffering enough.