The big losers have been the populists, people who came to power on the basis of easy slogans, half-truths or untruths, and divisive pitches: Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. Bombast and bluster only get you so far when tackling a virus. Contrast them with steady, sturdy Angela Merkel. Written off as past her sell-by date only a couple of months ago, the German Chancellor has seen her once-beleaguered Christian Democrats surging ahead.

The keyword is competence, and that gives rise to the question: does competence equal centrism? According to this theory, voters around the world flirted with democracy disrupters, but when confronted with a global crisis, they appear to be retreating to the comfort of the familiar.

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There's life yet in the Polish populists

By John Kampfner

The evidence points in this direction, but it is not conclusive. Germany is the clearest case. One recent poll suggests that Merkel’s CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, have climbed back up to a combined 40%, its highest for many years. If they maintain those kinds of numbers, they would romp home at the next election, due by September 2021, and dominate the next coalition.

For Merkel, whether or not she stands down as she has promised, that would mark an extraordinary turnaround and a vindication of her style of leadership. The far-right AfD is falling back sharply. The far-left Die Linke too.

What is most fascinating is the fate of the Greens. At the start of 2020 the Greens were being mooted as shoo-ins for the next government, possibly even leading it. Their two co-leaders, Robert Habeck and Annaleena Baerbock, were being mooted as the possible next chancellor. A job share, even? Habeck was eulogised in Foreign Policy magazine as Germany’s answer to Emmanuel Macron. Now this seems a fanciful notion — not because either has done anything wrong. Indeed, one might assume that the tide would be turning in their favour.

It has become axiomatic to declare that Covid-19 has changed us all. Nothing will be the same again, even after the step-by-step opening up of societies. We have become more risk averse. We have come to value the slower values of life. We have suddenly become appreciative of birdsong. Who needs a beach holiday or a long-haul business trip when you have your back garden and Zoom?

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Is this what a Green world would look like?

By Stephen Pollard

These assumptions are based on precarious foundations. We have — at least until now — stayed at home because of a combination of government rule by fiat and individual risk assessment. We have not thought further ahead than that.

Will overall policy-making for our post-Covid future require (or reflect) radical and sustainable changes to behaviour? In a paper for the World Economic Forum, Emily Kirsch, a renewable energy entrepreneur, writes:

“Some have written about the silver lining of coronavirus, arguing that the current drop in emissions and air pollution should be celebrated — but this drop is a direct function of the halting of economic and social activities, and does not represent the liveable future that we need to build.”

“Suggesting that short-term coronavirus-related emissions reductions are ‘good for climate change’,” she adds, “sends a false message that human thriving and economic activity are incompatible with reducing emissions”.

Past crises suggest that populations play catch-up once they feel they are over the worst. For example, much is made of the consequences of the financial crash of 2007-08, but emissions actually fell only by 450 million tonnes (around 1%), which is a much smaller drop than the aftermath of the Second World War, and also during the recessions of the early 1980s and 90s.

Instead, we conformed to the classic V-curve, an immediate plunge followed quickly by a similar surge. Spending and consuming shot straight back up once confidence (and income) returned. Even if Covid-19 produces a U-curve, in which economies stay at the bottom for longer before eventually returning to health, will the final stage of the recovery look different to what came before?

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The 'green crap' lessons of 2013

By James Kirkup

According to forecasts, global emissions are projected to go down by approximately 4-8% this year. The extent of the challenge the world faces with the climate emergency is such that that level of reduction will be needed every year for the next 30 years in order for the net-zero carbon emissions target to be reached by 2050. Even then, such a consistent transformation in the way we lead our lives would only succeed in keeping the temperature rise below 1.5°C.

The trouble is we don’t want to be locked up any more. We will certainly appreciate more cycle lanes and many city authorities, including London’s mayor, are using the crisis to fast track such plans. That is a long-term trend driven both by our consciences and by state action (making car driving ever slower, more expensive and more unpleasant). We might fly less, taking the train more or relying on stay-cations. But aviation accounts for no more than 3% of total emissions. We might eat less meat, particularly beef… it all helps.

But something different will be needed that many people will say they are unwilling to bear. As the Economist put it: “The pandemic is not, as some say, ‘nature’s reset’. Such thinking easily slips into the misanthropy that can lead environmentalists to see people themselves as the problem.”

One of the problems of the Green movement is its cultural associations. Attendance at Extinction Rebellion protests or Greta Thunberg rallies has in some quarters become just one more virtue signal. In an essay in The National Interest, the academic and author Anatol Lieven argues that climate change denial has become “a cultural marker of conservative identity”, particularly in the United States during the dystopian era of Trump:

“These Republican prejudices have been exacerbated by the way in which the Left has loaded onto the agenda of fighting climate change economic, political and cultural issues that are either irrelevant to climate change or directly opposed to action: the abolition (as opposed to reform) of capitalism, and a whole rag bag of identity politics and demands for minority ‘empowerment’.”

Lieven calls for environmentalism to be recast as a national, patriotic issue: in other words, sugar the pill to win red necks over to the cause. To a degree he is right. The green agenda needs to be broadened, to include folk who choose not to associate themselves with “green issues”.

To a degree that’s already happening. Germany’s Greens have extended their reach beyond metropolitans to include traditional more socially conservative voters in small towns and villages, particularly in Bavaria. Austria, too, where the Greens are in government. What they share with the urban hipsters is an antipathy towards globalisation and a yearning for a slower and more traditional way of life.

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Should we let the aviation industry die?

By Peter Franklin

Local, in this case, does mean global. Confining Green issues to the nation state is to miss the point. International collaboration is the only sensible means of tackling the climate emergency — just as a failure to coordinate the global response to Covid-19 exacerbated the problems the world is facing.

Will voters be more amenable to making the necessary huge changes to their lives needed to tackle not just this crisis, but the one lurking a few down the road? Will they, in practical terms, accept a fiscal system that punishes hypermobility and a social value system in which “excessive” consumer durables are regarded as unacceptable? Will they stay at home more and buy less — not because they are forced to, as now, but out of choice?

In theoretical terms, are they more amenable to a different kind of capitalism and consumerism? Have they moved beyond the era when Gordon Brown told people that shopping was a patriotic duty? They might, possibly, but it will need a particularly deft set of politicians around the world to convince them that the traumas of 2020 were not a one-off. And it is likely that those politicians may not come from the newer order of parties, but from the old established mainstream: safety-first people better trusted to introduce radical policies.

The country that produced Lech Walesa, the most charismatic figure of anti-Communist resistance in the 1980s, now has one of the most viscerally nationalist and xenophobic governments anywhere in the world. That is quite a statement: the competition for that mantle (think Trump; think Bolsonaro in Brazil; think Orban in Hungary or Italy’s Salvini) is intense.

In one crucial way, Poland stands apart from these others. The popularity of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has dominated politics since its landslide election win of 2015, has arisen in a place where the economy, on the face of it, is a soaring success. Poland has been one of the best performing countries anywhere in Europe for the past 30 years. GDP per capita growth has been the best of all the post-Soviet states.

Since accession to the EU in 2004, average yearly earnings have doubled between 2004 and 2016 (adjusted slightly down for inflation). The minimum wage has more than doubled. Unemployment has decreased by over 12 percentage points. Indices on absolute and relative poverty have also improved. In 2017 Poland had the highest economic growth in the EU. There has not been a single year of economic contraction, not even during the 2008 crisis that followed.

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Is blue-collar populism here to stay?

By Henry Olsen

Yet, in 2015, the moderate Civic Platform lost power, the PiS winning both parliamentary and presidential elections, seizing an absolute majority in the lower house, giving it the authority to challenge constitutional norms.

It seems to run counter to received wisdom, that the populists should take root when the economy is doing so well. But perhaps the glowing economic story is not all that it chieems. After all, GDP figures don’t count for much if you’re not earning much to begin with. When George Osborne used to talk about sharing the proceeds of growth, many from those Brexit-voting towns that had fallen by the wayside wondered “what growth?”.

In fact, much of the economic upturn in Poland has been uneven. Working hours are the longest in the EU and while notional employment is up, much of that comes through the gig economy. A quarter of the workforce is on temporary contracts.

The core vote for PiS can be found in predictable places – with the older generations in rural and small towns, among people with lower education levels, and staunch Catholics with conservative moral views. Geographically it is strongest in the east and in coal mining communities, where the industry has declined by two thirds since the end of Communism. Intriguingly the party has also gained support among a small but not insignificant band of so-called “hipster Right”.

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Poles apart: what’s driving Poland’s populism?

By Ben Sixsmith

A generation of EU membership, and free movement, has given Poles a taste of wealthier countries (remember the supposed one million “Polish plumbers in the UK”?). Average wages in Poland are still three times lower than the EU average. Graduates collided with reality when entering the labour market. And the emerging middle class convinced themselves they were Europe’s lackeys.

The PiS has been artful in capitalising on the discrepancy. It has built a narrative of “Poland in ruins”, focusing on negative perceptions of public life and unfulfilled expectations, and omitting inconvenient facts about a higher standard of living and the well-over £120 billion Poland has received from EU funds. Andrzej Duda, the PiS-backed President, recently called the EU “an imaginary community” that brings no benefits.

Duda has been head of state since 2015, initially with the ultra-conservative Beata Szydlo as his prime minister. But she was replaced in 2017 with Mateusz Morawiecki, reportedly at the request of the man behind Duda’s throne, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. As party leader, but with no formal role in government, Kaczynski pulls all the strings, demanding loyalty and rarely giving it back.

As with Trump, as with Bolsonaro, it is the culture war that resonates, and history has left a deep suspicion of both Russia and Germany. Relations with Russia are complicated. Unlike other far-Right, nationalist movements, there is little evidence that the Kremlin is operating behind the scenes – notwithstanding suggestions that Russia might have been involved in the 2010 plane crash that killed Jaroswlaw’s twin brother, Lech Kaczynski. The historic enmity is too strong, and public opinion wouldn’t wear it. Now there are even signs that the official media are warming to Moscow.

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The West divided: Populism versus liberalism in the 21st century

By Peter Franklin

The asylum crisis provided PiS with the perfect opportunity to revive its fortunes ahead of the 2015 elections. Mixing xenophobia with the rhetoric of martyrdom, Kaczynski described refugees as carriers of cholera, dysentery and “other, even more severe diseases”, which is where Germany comes in.

There is something about Angela Merkel that sets off Polish nationalists. She stands accused variously of supporting illegal migration, tolerating Nazis and introducing permissive social reforms (how those might be reconciled is anyone’s guess).

Merkel’s calmness under fire only exacerbates a sense of resentment and envy, towards Germany, and increasingly towards all things Brussels (which is seen as an offshoot). Each time the European institutions warn Poland that its government is defying its rules, it provides the populists with ammunition.

At the heart of the battle is the PiS’s assault on a free media and judiciary. National television is now a Soviet-era propaganda tool. Dozens of journalists have been fired, in several cases because they refused to broadcast fake news stories about the opposition. State TV dropped its annual coverage of the country’s biggest charity event, which raises millions each year for sick children, because its organiser also campaigns for sexual minorities. Senior figures in public radio and television will be appointed, or dismissed, by the treasury minister rather than the national broadcasting council.

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How the gilets jaunes could save Macron's skin

By John Lichfield

In October 2018, the European Court of Justice demanded that Poland stop a policy that was forcing dozens of supreme court justices to take early retirement, allowing the government to pack legal benches with loyal supporters.

This announcement followed an unprecedented move in December 2017 to trigger a so-called Article 7 procedure aimed at blocking its efforts to limit judicial independence. If fully implemented, it would deprive Poland of voting rights. More punishment, more victimhood. But it’s hard to see what else the EU can do, short of kicking Poland out, which given the state of Brexit could lead to other populist regimes in Central Europe, such as Hungary, choosing to go.

The Hungarian model of self-proclaimed “illiberal democracy” is rarely far from mind when considering Poland. As with Viktor Orban’s regime in Budapest, the Polish government has initiated a series of populist (and popular) economic reforms, including reversing an increase in the pension age, increasing the minimum wage and introducing a programme for house building. It is quite prepared to break the EU’s borrowing rules, revelling in the prospect of another battle. Poland gladly takes billions of euros from the EU, whose cultural values its government holds in contempt.

But the schism in Polish society is more pronounced than ever. Last month, the Left-leaning mayor in the northern port city of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, was murdered while addressing a charity auction on stage.

The town was the birthplace of Solidarity and has long been a bastion of liberal opposition. Adamowicz, who was first elected mayor in 1998, turned the city into a haven of liberal democracy and tolerance, where immigrants were welcomed, and gays and lesbians did not need to feel threatened. He was denounced for being a criminal who would let terrorists into Poland.

The 27-year-old assailant had a history of mental illness and violence but no clear political motive.  True to form, state media showed little remorse or sympathy for Adamowicz. Initially they blamed the opposition for stoking tensions – although such was the backlash that even they were eventually compelled to tone down their line.

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The invisible refugee crisis on Poland's doorstep

By Aleksandra Lipczak

So against this backdrop, what hope does the PiS have in this key election year? Will it consolidate its power over the various votes (European ones in May, followed by parliamentary elections in the autumn)? Or will its power surge falter? There were tentative signs last October, in regional elections, that not everything was going its way: it failed to take control of a number of areas it had targeted, particularly in Warsaw and other big cities.

Civic Platform, on the other hand, fared moderately well, tapping into middle-class fears regarding the PiS’s direction. But the centre in Poland is suffering from the same problem as it is elsewhere in Europe. In country after country social democracy and Christian democracy have been associated with tired ‘elites’, turning off voters. In Poland, though, it appears there is room for disruption, and an interloper is gaining momentum. This week, Robert Biedron who is Left-wing and gay, launched a new party: Wiosna (which means Spring).

In a country where the Catholic Church holds sway, you might think that a party targeted at progressive Poles, with liberal policies regarding abortion and homosexuality, would be a non-starter. But Biedron is garnering support by being unashamedly different, and appealing to those appalled by the Right and ignored by the liberals. Could he become the next Macron, as he seeks to be? Or will he split the anti-nationalist vote in the forthcoming elections? That remains to be seen.

For now, the trajectory is still in the direction of the PiS, particularly as the state media and the judiciary can now be relied upon to do its bidding. There is, it seems, more life in the Polish populists yet.

That might seem a surprising statement given Russia’s record over the past two and a half decades. I lived in Moscow for several years in the 1990s and return relatively often. Most of my friends have fled, citing physical danger, demoralisation and the impossibility of doing business legitimately in the Mafia state established by Vladimir Putin. So why should we be so worried by a small state in central Europe, with the most impenetrable of languages and little geo-strategic influence? Hungary was last synonymous with the global power when it was allied with Austria in the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The problem with contemporary Hungary is that it represents Europe’s problem. It is at the heart of the continent, geographically and spiritually, and the contagion of its dangerous model is spreading to its neighbours and beyond.

The architect of it all, the Putin mini-me, is Viktor Orbán. The trouble is that he has been elected Prime Minister of Hungary four times now, the last three in succession, as an avowed authoritarian. He is obviously doing something that people, or enough of them, like. Or are impervious to.

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U OK Hun(gary)?

By Peter Franklin

A quick reprise: Orbán shot to prominence in 1989, in the year of revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe, when as a twenty-something firebrand he denounced the Communist government in a speech in Budapest’s Heroes Square. He demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

Hungary had been the loosest member of the Warsaw Pact and its transition from dictatorship was relatively smooth. The country followed a familiar path of democratisation cum privatisation. The problem was, as with Russia and others in the 1990s, the transformation became synonymous with theft. Those with power and influence – mainly but not exclusively those with connections under the old regime – were the beneficiaries. The ordinary voter, particularly people who had worked in the old smoke stack industries or in the public sector, suffered.

Orbán took office for the first time in 1998 at the helm of his right-wing Fidesz party, becoming at 35 the country’s second youngest leader. Already his modus operandi was becoming apparent. He had little patience for negotiation, seeking to sweep aside parliament and others who stood in his way. His administration was marked by a number of corruption scandals. In spite of the problems, Western governments saw him as a reliable ally. Hungary was joining Nato and the European Union.

They say power corrupts, but in his case, it was the loss of power in 2002 that turned Orbán. He resolved that next time, not only would he need to win, he would need to take control of all the levers. He began working on what his supporters terms a patriotic cohort of entrepreneurs, people on whom he could rely for political muscle and cash; in return they could benefit commercially.

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Europe's democratic difficulties

By Helen Thompson

Hungary developed a Russian-style oligarchic elite. The rise of Fidesz-linked businessmen happened in plain sight.

Orbán developed his concept of “illiberal democracy”, taking on the so-called ‘global elites’, in a precursor to the mindset of Brexit and Trump that would become so seductive later on.

The financial crash of 2007-8 hit Hungary hard. Unemployment shot up, living standards crashed. All around them Hungarians saw European countries, especially those in the south (like Greece) or east (such as Latvia) suffering under the debt burden. This fuelled the already latent mix of resentment and xenophobia. Hungary has traditionally seen itself as encircled.

In April 2010, Orbán swept to power with a stunning victory and the two thirds majority required to enact radical change. He planned, even during the transition, for an assault on the constitution. He needed to go after those who might resist his power grab: first the media, then the judiciary. His strategy was predicated on removing checks and balance and silencing investigations and critical voices.

Over the next five years, he used his party’s dominance to pass more than 1,000 laws, many of them enacted after a few hours debate and often presented by low ranking lawmakers who had not read them, let alone written them. Through legislative sleights of hand and force of will he transformed his country into a political test bed for a 21^st century version of autocracy, combining crony capitalism and far Right rhetoric with a one-party political culture.

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The far right's plans to capture Europe

By Ian Birrell

Old school friends, neighbours and football mates (he was obsessed with the sport) made fortunes. The more control he seized, the easier it became to distribute largesse – and to receive loyalty in return. Self-styled entrepreneurs queued up to ‘work’ with him. Except they weren’t particularly entrepreneurial. It was all about state assets, or ‘state capture’ as it came to be known.

Unlike famous Russians such as Roman Abramovich or Oleg Deripaska, their Hungarian equivalents are not household names. Nor do they count their money in billions. For them it tends to be merely hundreds of millions. But as a proportion of national income, it is still not to be sniffed at.

Previously the one person whom Hungarians had heard of was Lajos Simicska. He was at school, military service and university with Orbán. He helped him build up Fidesz, assembling a loyal media empire and a sprawling construction business. Then he got too big for his boots and was kicked out of the inner circle. He is still Hungary’s 11^th richest man, worth £250 million.

Fourteenth on the list, with an estimated wealth of £180 million is Andy Vajna, a Hungarian-American who made some of his fortune as a producer of films like Rambo and Total Recall. He was appointed Hungary’s film commissioner by Orbán in 2011. Among the lucrative state contracts he was awarded were five of seven casino licences.

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Perhaps the most exotic is Lorinc Meszaros, a former gas fitter and mayor of Orbán’s home village of Felcsut (a village where they built a football stadium to accommodate a crowd more than twice the size of its population). Thanks to a number of state contracts, he jumped to number five on the rich list, his wealth soaring five-fold in just one year to £330 million. Asked by reporters how he had grown his business faster than Mark Zuckerberg, he declared: “maybe I’m smarter”.

Hungary has built this system from within the European Union – with EU funds. Some 60% of state contracts, billions of Euro, are funded by the EU. The Corruption Research Centre Budapest, a non-governmental organisation, analysed all public procurement contracts from 2010-16. It found that the aggregate value of contracts won by four Fidesz-linked businessmen (including the prime minister’s son-in-law) was 13 times larger than the size of other contracts. Their total haul came to £1.8 billion. Sometimes contracts are put out to tender; sometimes tenders take place, but competitors know they are going through the motions.

The rot set in a long time ago. Corruption was rife under Communism, when consumer goods were in short supply, it was all about who you knew and who could get hold of what. During the mad-dash liberalisation of the 1990s, the opportunities for self-enrichment increased exponentially, as assets were privatised. From Russia to Ukraine, Moldova to Armenia, they were effectively stolen, as the notional purchase price did not remotely correspond to value.

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Orbán's political jackpot

By Eszter Zalan

The most vocal criticism of cronyism comes, dishearteningly, from the only major opposition force, the far-right Jobbik party. Before and during the last election, it erected billboards across the country. One showed Orbán with three businessmen above a slogan in the typeface from the film Godfather, which read “gangsters”. Another brandished the words: “You work. They steal.”

Hungary has slid down Transparency International’s global legal table. It is now rated as more corrupt than Montenegro – graft was cited by the EU as the main reason why the Montenegrans were told they are not ready for membership.

The founders of the EU never considered the possibility that a member state would go backwards, in terms of politics and probity. It did not create procedures to deal with the new era of populism and cronyism. Viviane Reding, EU Justice Commissioner at the time of Hungary’s accession told the New York Times recently: “We never thought that someone would go the other way.”

Orbán invariably gets away with it. Just occasionally he runs into problems. His labour law passed in December has led to genuine street protests, which he has not been able to dismiss as part of his global elite conspiracy. The anger has come from ordinary men and women who will be required to work compulsory overtime, to compensate for labour force shortages exacerbated by his visceral anti-immigration policies.

One rule for some, one rule for others is, as the wily Orbán will know, a dangerous place for any politician to be. The crony capitalism that is now deeply embedded is facing its first serious test.

There is one further pressure: he has become the most powerful Left-wing leader in the world. On his shoulders rest the hopes not just of tens of millions of Mexicans but voters in many countries who cleave to a revival of socialism as a means of addressing the many fissures of globalisation.

That is why the relationship between Obrador and Jeremy Corbyn is so important. The Labour leader, whose wife is Mexican and who has frequently visited Latin America, is a close friend. On the eve of his inauguration, Obrador made a public gesture of welcoming Corbyn to his country home in the southern state of Chiapas.

Mexico’s journey in the coming months will provide Corbyn with valuable lessons, to prepare him in the event of getting to power. In these times of deep cynicism and fear, the enthusiasm among a broad swathe of Mexicans is striking. They see in Amlo, his name’s initials by which he is best known, the answer to their prayers.

Further reading

Why we should welcome the populist victory in Mexico

By Charlotte Pickles

In his first few days in charge he has done little to dampen expectations. Launching a 100-point plan, no less, he vowed to reverse decades of free market liberal economics, put the interests of the poor and indigenous communities first, decentralise power to the regions and revive the oil industry. Five months of planning since his landslide victory in early July – perhaps the longest transition in any country’s constitution – have removed much of the surprise. Everyone has known for some time what is coming.

During a working trip at the end of August I was struck by the disdain in which Amlo is held by many professionals I met. Part of it is pure snobbery. Like Corbyn, he has spruced himself up, but he still doesn’t cut it as a suave, jet-setting leader in the style of previous presidents. Part of the ill will is simple economics. This is a deeply divided society. Polanco and Condesa, the two swankiest districts of Mexico City, resemble London’s Knightsbridge and Notting Hill. Meanwhile, the grinding poverty for millions is visible everywhere.

In a second trip over the past few days, some of the wealthier were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, assuming that he won’t really go after them, and if he does, they have ways of spiriting their money out. So far the Mexican peso and stock market have fallen sharply but there has been no dramatic run – yet.

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Jean-Luc Mélenchon: a smarter Jeremy Corbyn

By John Lichfield

The silver-haired son of a shopkeeper has tried to become Mexico’s president twice before. In 2006 he lost by just 0.5% of the vote, claiming that he had been robbed and setting up a tented protest village for months. On his second attempt in 2012 he lost by a more convincing 7%. Some thought his time was up.

In his manner of governing, he has pledged to be as different from his centre-Right predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto as possible. On Monday, on his first morning in charge, he despatched the presidential Boeing 787 jet (more lavish, it is said, than Air Force One) back to California for safekeeping until a suitable oligarch can be found to buy it. Amlo plans to fly economy on commercial airliners, and he plans to get rid of the 60 planes and 70 helicopters on the government’s books. He has refused to live in the presidential compound, Los Pinos (the Pines), and has opened it up to the public. He has promised to work 16 hours a day, starting with a 6am security briefing and a 7am press conference.

He is proud to call this austerity – but not the British version where the general population, particularly the poorer, shouldered the biggest burden. He is going after government spending on luxuries. No meetings in restaurants or posh hotels. Only in plain government offices.

One of Amlo’s most symbolic decisions, taken during the transition, was to hold a referendum on plans for a new airport, designed by Norman Foster. This was a waste of money; plane travel, he implied, was a plaything of the rich. A majority voted to scrap it, but the turnout was tiny (one million out of 45 million who voted in July’s election) and the ballot was run not by the electoral commission but by his Morena party, raising fears of ballot stuffing.

Electoral promises will be kept. The people are sovereign. Sound familiar? Amlo appears a curious mix of Brexit-era and Trumpist populism.  Trump couldn’t stand Pena Nieto (the feeling was mutual) and tweeted hearty congrats to his successor. On the chummy level there is every chance the two will get on just fine. Here are two folksy, call-it-as-it-is, leaders; convergence of the angry Right with the angry Left. But that’s before they start to deal with the detail on trade and immigration.

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Peterson, Corbyn and the rise of the kidult

By Jenny Mccartney

There is also a comparison to be made with the smooth Davos-man Blair, a man who could not be more different to the new Mexican president. Not in policies or behaviour, but expectations. To watch Amlo’s victory speech at Zocalo, Mexico City’s colonial-era vast central square, evokes the less iconic but equally powerful setting of the Royal Festival Hall in May 1997. Things can only get better was the soundtrack. People hugged, believing a new Camelot had arrived.

Blair’s thesis, which propelled him to power with a similar landslide, was to portray the art of the possible as radical. New Labour would initiate change by stealth; he would keep on his side a country that the young prime minister believed was big C and small C conservative.  We know what eventually ensued: the financial crash and the end of centrist consensus, giving rise to the radical Left and Right.

No matter what era, however, and how it is dressed up, politics is the art of compromise, of marrying high principle with messy pragmatism. The inevitable conclusion is that he will disappoint. He has to, by the nature of the job. That is why, in his inaugural address, he asked the people for patience.

And that’s why it’s so crucial for Corbyn. Both men romanticise past Latin American revolutionaries (including the current regimes in Venezuela and Cuba). The reality of office will be more mundane. How much can radical Left-wing leaders really change within the confines of democracies and market systems? When the going gets rough, do they plough on or do they retrench, to the consternation of those voters who yearned for radical change? It will all be about managing expectations. Getting rid of presidential jets is the easy part.