While ordinary people fret about austerity and jobs, the eurozone's corridors of power have been undergoing a remarkable transformation.   The ascension of Mario Monti to the Italian prime ministership is remarkable for more reasons than it is possible to count. By replacing the scandal-surfing Silvio Berlusconi, Italy has dislodged the undislodgeable. By imposing rule by unelected technocrats, it has ...

Social-democracy had its apogee in the period 1945 to the late 1960s. At that time, it represented an ideology and a movement that stood for the use of state resources to ensure some redistribution to the majority of the population in various concrete ways: expansion of educational and health facilities; guarantees of lifelong income levels by programs to support the needs of the non-”wage-employed” groups, ...

Britain likes to pretend it has moved on: but birth determines our destiny and income more now than it did 50 years ago. By Polly Toynbee Class is a dangerous subject, taboo in mainstream politics. The riots brought out a rash of comment implying that there is one great, respectable middle class and an inexplicable underclass beneath, quite unconnected to what's been happening to wages, incomes and the stre ...