Here's why socialists in Europe keep losing for the same reasons

Despite a worldwide economic crisis, the left showed few gains in the last decade as the centre right reacted quicker to the shift in the electoral base, writes Leonid Bershidsky.

IT’S CLEAR after Sunday’s election in Germany that the electoral failures of established socialist parties in Europe are not a few isolated events but a trend, an existential crisis for the centre-left.

There are few better illustrations of this crisis than Social Democrat leader Martin Schulz’s futile anger at chancellor Angela Merkel in the aftermath of Sunday’s election.