MORNING BID EUROPE-A daily note from our Economics/Politics Editor

* A daily view from EMEA Economics & Politics Editor Mike Peacock The views expressed are his own.

LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Greece's ruling coalition will hold a confidence vote in parliament this evening in an effort to end speculation that the country may be facing snap elections early next year.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras wants to use the vote to gain support for his candidate in a presidential vote. Under Greek law, parliament must be dissolved if a president cannot be elected. The radical leftist Syriza, which has a sizeable lead in opinion polls, has pledged to block Samaras's pick.

Athens has begun talks with EU and IMF inspectors on life after its bailout. The coalition is hoping an exit will rally Greeks fed up with years of austerity, but it faces a series of hurdles in pulling that off, including convincing EU/IMF lenders it can finance itself without problems.

Many euro zone policymakers are in Washington for the G20/IMF meetings and after a couple of years lull, they are back in the spotlight after a dreadful run of German data has raised alarm about a new recession.

Having met in Australia only three weeks ago, the script is unlikely to change much: Most of the Western world will urge Europe to do more to foster growth and Germany will warn against letting up on austerity.

But the pressure is growing. Jyrki Katainen, the former Finnish premier poised to become the EU's top official for growth and jobs, told Reuters in an interview that Germany, France and Italy must focus on public investment to revive their economies. Berlin is talking only about encouraging private sector investment.

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi repeated his call for fiscal action, saying: "For governments that have fiscal space it makes sense to use it. You decide to which countries this sentence applies."

Anti-EU UKIP has made British political history by winning a first parliamentary seat at a by-election in the rundown seaside resort of Clacton, where the sitting Conservative lawmaker switched sides and triggered a vote. The result was expected but it still represents something of an earthquake. UKIP won an overwhelming 60 percent of the vote.

A second member of the ruling Conservative party has now defected to UKIP and will force another by-election next month. Many Conservatives fear they will lose their seats at the May 2015 general election as UKIP splits their vote. Could that be enough for them to turn on David Cameron? Probably not given the proximity of national elections.

Cameron has a strong argument - that only by keeping him as prime minister will Britons get an in/out EU referendum. To vote UKIP and fracture the right-wing vote would be to give the opposition Labour party the keys to power. It has not promised an EU plebiscite. But that case risks being swept aside by the momentum UKIP is building.

If the prime minister fails to win an overall parliamentary majority next time, having had to govern in coalition with the centrist Liberal Democrats since 2010, he would almost certainly be finished. At that point the Conservatives would be likely to choose a more profoundly anti-European leader.

Even (Taiwan OTC: 6436.TWO - news) more surprisingly, in a separate by-election in the northern England Labour stronghold of Heywood and Middleton, UKIP almost snatched another victory, losing out by just 41 percent of the vote to 39.

UKIP says it is going after Labour voters just as hard and, while it's still likely it will inflict much more damage on the Conservatives than Labour at the general election, this result means all the main party leaders will be waking up with a knot in their stomachs.

It looks like a bumper day for euro zone credit ratings reviews. France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Finland are all due to get fresh verdicts from one or other of the ratings agencies.

Chinese Prime Minister Lie Keqiang and 14 senior ministers visit Berlin, kicking off a week-long trip to Europe that will also include a summit of European and Asian leaders in Milan and the signing of energy and high-speed rail deals with Russia.

A clutch of Sino-German deals are expected, including a hook-up between Deutsche Boerse (Xetra: 63DA.DE - news) and the Shanghai Stock Exchange and possibly some Airbus orders.

We'll be on the alert for noises about Russia and Ukraine and the state of the euro zone.

Islamic State fighters have seized more than a third of the Syrian town of Kobani, according to a monitoring group, despite nine U.S. air strikes on Thursday striking fighting units and destroying four buildings held by the group.

If IS took the town on the Turkish border, it would send an alarming message about the reach of U.S. power and could substantially undermine morale of the Kurdish and other forces who are confronting them on the ground.

After a Spanish nurse became the first person infected outside Africa, Ebola may be rearing its ugly head in new locations. Macedonia said it was checking for the virus in a British man who died within hours of being admitted to hospital in the capital Skopje on Thursday.

Czech media, however, reported that tests on a 56-year-old Czech man hospitalised in Prague with symptoms of the virus had shown he did not have Ebola.

In an emotional appeal to a high-level meeting of major donors gathered at the World Bank in Washington, African leaders chided the international community for its slow response to the crisis and appealed to the world to turn promises of aid into action on the ground. (Editing by Susan Fenton)