europe swings right as depression deepens

Telegraph | The establisment Left had been crushed across most of Europe, just as it was in the early 1930s.

We have seen the ultimate crisis of capitalism -- what Marxist-historian Eric Hobsbawm calls the "dramatic equivalent of the collapse of the Soviet Union" -- yet socialists have completely failed to reap any gain from the seeming vindication of their views.

It is not clear why a chunk of the blue-collar working base has swung almost overnight from Left to Right, but clearly we are seeing the delayed detonation of two political time-bombs: rising unemployment and the growth of immigrant enclaves that resist assimilation.

Note that Right-wing incumbents in France (Sarkozy) and Italy (Berlusconi), survived the European elections unscathed.

Left-wing incumbents in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and of course Britain were either slaughtered, or badly mauled.