But what seemed to be the last straw has been the last tax scandal, taken on by his sister in law Fabiola.

The last straw was the blatant falsification of December s parliamentary elections, which reinforced citizens sense that the regime regards them with contempt.

The final nail in the coffin was the appreciation of the euro between 2002 and 2008.

The Guardian Council's barring of over 2,000 mostly reformist candidates from participating in the parliamentary elections was the last straw.

If Pakistan s history is any indicator, his decision to impose martial law may prove to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel s back.

It proved to be the tipping point, triggering waves of protests by lawyers and other groups in Pakistan s main cities.

Coming so shortly on the heels of the subprime crisis, the debate over the debt ceiling and the budget deficit is the last straw.

A Grexit could prove to be the last straw, and would surely lead to a tightening in domestic monetary conditions at a very precarious point in the economic cycle.

So this is, as Joy Mountford once said, The mouse is probably the narrowest straw you could try to suck all of human expression through.

For the Kenyan authorities, it was the final straw after a series of abductions of Westerners by al Shabaab to stop the incursions, they launched what military leaders believed would be a quick campaign.

And women have drawn the short medical straw because it now turns out that many of these drugs don't work nearly as well on women as they do on men and the drugs that do work well work so well that they're actively harmful for women to take.