(Reuters) - Greece's conservatives have regained an opinion poll lead that would allow the formation of a pro-bailout government committed to keeping the country in the euro zone, a batch of new surveys showed on Saturday.

Greece was forced to call repeat elections for June 17 after a May 6 vote left parliament divided evenly between groups of parties that support and oppose the austerity conditions attached to a 130 billion euro bailout agreed with the European Union and International Monetary Fund in March.

Polls up to Saturday had showed pro- and anti-bailout parties running neck-and-neck ahead of the vote which could determine the country's future in the single currency.

Five polls published in the weekend press showed the conservative New Democracy party, which supports the bailout, with a lead of between 0.5 and 5.7 points over the anti-bailout leftist SYRIZA party - though analysts said the race was still too close to call.

Richard Branson, whose support for Tory economic plans was enthusiastically trumpeted by George Osborne in the runup to the last general election, has dramatically turned on the coalition for failing to promote growth.

Britain's most famous business tycoon said ministers' rhetoric on reinvigorating the economy had not been matched by action. He demanded that the government show more support for small and medium businesses which were "the engines of any healthy economy".

In an outspoken intervention, the founder and chairman of the Virgin Group called for a renewed focus from ministers on bringing unemployment down and promoting the country's entrepreneurial spirit.

Tens of thousands of Georgians have rallied in the capital as the ex-Soviet state's richest man launched his bid to oust President Mikheil Saakashvili's governing party at elections later this year.

Supporters of billionaire tycoon-cum-opposition leader Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream opposition alliance packed into Tbilisi's Freedom Square on Sunday for the lavishly-staged rally intended as a show of strength ahead of October's polls.

It was the biggest rally since 2009 by an opposition revitalised by the super-rich businessman's intervention, although opinion polls suggest his alliance trails behind the governing party.

Georgia's most famous footballer Kakha Kaladze, who recently retired from playing in Italy's Serie A, told the crowd that Saakashvili must quit.

"Misha [Saakashvili], your time is up. Go!" Kaladze said.

Before the rally, columns of Ivanishvili supporters marched through the city.

"We need real democracy, real freedom, not Saakashvili's fairy tales," said one participant, unemployed Juliet Tsulaia

Lawyers for imprisoned tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky denied a report circulating Sunday in the British media that their client sent a letter to the British prime minister urging a visa ban on 308 Russian officials at the London Summer Olympics.

In an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio, lawyer Yury Schmidt said: "I am absolutely convinced that Khodorkovsky could not compile such a list. It's some kind of intentional error or an overt provocation," Interfax reported.

The Sunday Telegraph said that Khodorkovsky had passed the newspaper a letter via his lawyers that said President Vladimir Putin had the power to push Russia toward democracy but had no impetus without pressure.

"It is the role of other world leaders to spell out the price Russia tragically pays for being semi-detached from the family of modern democratic nations," the paper quoted him as saying.

David Mellor, who ran Mr Hunt's department under the last Tory government in the 1990s, said Mr Hunt had only survived to protect Prime Minister David Cameron.

Mr Mellor said that he thought there would be a "number of scalps" from the fallout of the Leveson inquiry into press standards.

He told Sky News' Murnaghan: "Jeremy Hunt will probably have to go. But I think the real scalp is the Prime Minister - he won't have to resign but his credibility is blown away.

"He has been exposed as a shallow, callow sort of guy who doesn't have too many aims and ambitions and cant even get basic judgement calls right."

Mr Monti speaks of the war on tax evasion, but put the title of his newly acquired villa on Lake Maggiore into Goldman Sachs' name, which because it is a banking society will pay no tax on the 6 million euro property.

plus ca change...

"It's very hard to see what is kept invisible" Roseanne Barr

Merkel wants to launch Europe-wide programs to promote start-ups and small and mid-sized business, like the programs offered by the KfW development bank in Germany.... Merkel also wants EU countries with high unemployment to use Germany as a model in reforming their labour markets.... This would mean relaxing protections against wrongful dismissal and introducing more limited employment circumstances, called "mini-jobs" in Germany, with lower tax and contribution burdens [...] These countries would also be expected to develop a dual education system.... [In the countries of the South, where many companies enjoy state protection], privatisation funds like those that existed in East Germany will be created. [...] The advisors also recommend the establishment of so-called special economic zones, like the ones that once ushered in China's economic ascent. Finally, the Germans want Europe's southern countries to invest more in renewable energy, reduce tax barriers and promote worker mobility.

Not only should Christine Lagarde know better, she does know better. When the head of the IMF agreed in this paper on Saturday that the crisis across southern Europe was "payback time", she contravened both common sense and her own arguments. Imprudent borrowers require foolhardy lenders, and in Greece and elsewhere that role has often been played by northern European banks. In summer 2010, just as the eurozone crisis kicked off, the country whose banks were most exposed to Greece was France. Similarly, French banks were only just behind German institutions in their loans to Spain. By easing these huge flows of hundreds of billions across borders, the single currency played a material role in causing the continent's crisis.

Ms Lagarde knows all this. Indeed, as France's finance minister at the tail end of the boom, she must be held partly responsible. On moving to the Fund last year, one of her early interventions was to state that European banks were in dire need of more capital. At the time, she came in for barracking from the finance industry - but she was absolutely right. It was notable that when the IMF reiterated the call last month, bankers did not argue.

Which is what makes this weekend's outburst so surprising - and important. The morality tale Ms Lagarde sets out is not a new one: feckless southern Europeans ran riot for the euro's first decade and now have to be bailed out from their mess. Indeed, it has justified austerity programmes in Greece, Portugal and Ireland, and allowed the rest of Europe to avoid sorting out their vulnerable banks. But it is neither accurate nor useful. Until the financial crisis, Spain's government had a tighter grip on public finances than France: it was Spain's private sector that went berserk. And when it comes to total debt as a proportion of annual GDP, France is not far behind either Spain or Italy. That possible black-sheep status will be confirmed if the eurozone crisis intensifies any further.

It is conceivable that Tsipras will blink first, if he wins the election and finds he can't shift the Germans. But this is unlikely. The typical weasel words of a politician won't be enough to get him out of a tight spot; he would have to perform a complete somersault. It is doubtful the Marxists in his party would let him get away with this and, if they did, he would certainly lose all credibility in the country.

That said, a victory for Tsipras may paradoxically be Greece's best chance of staying in the euro because it would bring things to a head rapidly. The country is being kept alive by a dual life-support system: the euro zone and IMF are channelling cash to the government, while the European Central Bank is authorising cash transfers to the banks. If the first tap is turned off, the government will not be able to pay salaries and pensions from July. If the second tap is turned off, the banks could run out of cash within days.

Cutting off Greece's life support could be the trigger for reintroducing the drachma as the people found the cash machines ran dry. But it could also finally force the people to decide whether they were prepared to back reform - provided the euro zone simultaneously rolled out a proper plan to help the country. A key element of that would have to be to take over the Greek banks and guarantee their deposits, putting the country into a form of financial protectorate.

German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity - equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity - through the midday hours of Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank has said.

Germany's government decided to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, closing eight plants immediately and shutting down the remaining nine by 2022. They will be replaced by renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and bio-mass.

Norbert Allnoch, director of the Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry in Muenster, said the 22 gigawatts of solar power fed into the national grid on Saturday met nearly 50% of the nation's midday electricity needs.

How are they taken out?

"By hand. The Vatican intelligence service has integrated security systems in the basement of the Apostolic Palace, directed by a 35-year-old ex-hacker, that are more advanced than anything the CIA has, sophisticated systems, but they're no use. Because the Cardinals are used to writing their messages by hand and dictating them. They are then delivered by hand. And the leaked documents are their way of fighting this war. The primary objective was to attack the Pope, to weaken him and convince him to give up control of the political and economic affairs of the Church. Something had to be done."