The Euros in cold, hard numbers

By Adam Roberts Digital editor The Economist. Refreshed after some time away (and nowhere is more delightful than Sicily in the early summer), I offer you a sporting prediction. Whatever siren voices the English football team hear in the coming weeks, they should squelch any fantasy of winning the Euros. England play their opening game just after this newsletter goes out. Win over mighty Serbia (ranked 33rd in the world) and there’ll be tiresome talk across the country—yet again—of football “coming home”. We have published an analysis that puts cold, hard numbers on the chances of that happening. I also recommend a fascinating story on the secret of how to take better penalties (hint: it involves technology). But you really don’t need stats to know what, inevitably, is going to happen. Enjoy the tournament, England fans, but those with cooler heads should read our review of a book on the rise of the extraordinarily dominant French team. England, not football, will be coming home early. Go on, prove me wrong. Assuming the French do win yet another tournament, it will come too late to give any electoral boost to Emmanuel Macron, their country’s beleaguered president. He has called a legislative election (snap ones are in vogue) amid growing concern over the rise of the far right. We will soon be publishing our latest assessment of the worrying state of France’s electoral politics, ahead of the first round of voting on June 30th. Look out, in the next few days, for our profile of the man of the moment: Jordan Bardella, a 28-year-old deputy to Marine Le Pen who might, just, become prime minister. Markets are already twitchy. In America too there’s much to consider. Is a housing boom on the way there (and indeed, in other countries, too)? We have a new article that suggests it is. And will the Supreme Court rule on whether presidents are immune from prosecution? A decision could be handed down soon. We’ll also be asking about the Senate, and how that chamber might behave were Republicans to take control, as seems likely, after November. That matters whoever sits in the White House. In case you missed it, I urge you to bookmark our newly published election-forecast page. This will be updated daily until polling ends. Right now—sigh—it suggests Donald Trump has a two-thirds chance of victory. Elsewhere, I’ll be looking out for Vladimir Putin, who is rumoured to be making a visit any day to his fellow tyrant, Kim Jong Un, in Pyongyang. No, it’s not a gathering of Bond villains. It seems this is to do with North Korea’s role as a supplier of military goods to Russia. The Hermit Kingdom is helping to prolong the war in Ukraine.