...Move forward into the 21st century and the left has changed beyond recognition. Socialism is dead, destroyed by the terrible crimes of the communists and the success of market economies, most notably in Asia. There are still people who call themselves socialists but no serious political movement anywhere in the world believes it can improve society by nationalising the economy. This is a huge defeat because the case for socialism was economic as well as moral. Socialism was meant to bring a higher and more productive economy. According to Marx, its triumph was inevitable. Today it is its failure which seems predetermined...

...They can no longer inspire enthusiasm for vast schemes of state control because they no longer believe in them themselves - and nor do most of their supporters when they are honest with themselves.

Political writers have discussed the death of socialism at length, but few have noticed how the leftism that has emerged from the wreckage finds it easy to go along with right wing and extreme right wing ideas that the 20th century left at its best opposed.

I will explain what I mean with the help of a few scenarios that I hope a Swedish reader will recognise.

• You study the ideology of radical Islam and realise it is a liberal nightmare. It includes the subjugation of women, the murder of homosexuals and of any Muslim who of his or her own free will decides to change their religious belief, the imposition of a theocratic state, the denial of freedom of speech and conscience and the anti-semitic conspiracy theories of Adolf Hitler. You discover that from the Iranian revolution onwards, whenever radical Islamists have seized power they have murdered liberals and leftists. Having reached these rather obvious conclusions, you read the press from a random sample of European countries, and find that without exception its is liberal rather than conservative newspapers which excuse the radicalism of the reactionary right.
• A bomb explodes in Stockholm killing 100 people. Within minutes, the radio is filled with the voices of leftists who blame the Americans, the Israelis and the Swedish government for mass murder. Not one criticises the terrorists or the ideology that motivated them.