Indecision and defeatism holds Europe back

“I have seen the future and it works,” said Lincoln Steffens, a left-wing American journalist, on returning from the Soviet Union in 1919.

After a weekend in Venice at a seminar organised by the Italian ambassador to Britain, I found myself struck by the same thought, which is not exactly the reflection that the world’s most perfectly preserved medieval city is supposed to inspire.

But should we perhaps be inspired, not depressed, by the thought of Venice, the ultimate “museum city”, as a microcosm of Italy and even of Europe as a whole? After all, Venice is still standing, not sinking into the sea, and after 500 years of supposed decline, it is still stunningly beautiful.