With rightwing politicians across Europe nationalising banks, pumping public money into the economy, and demanding tighter regulation of “rogue” financial markets, it is hard to tell where the ideological dividing lines in politics now lie.

By helping realise many of their demands, the financial crisis may, paradoxically, have left many of Europe’s leftwing parties weaker. In many countries, opposition socialist and social democratic parties have been left shouting on the sidelines, bereft of relevant new ideas, as the financial storm has raged. But now is surely the moment for the European left to think afresh.