When I first visited London, in the summer of 1991, I was struck by the unfamiliar spectacle of boarded-up shops, and of shops that had been hollowed out and were now occupied by temporary stalls selling imported clothing or knick-knacks.

The experiment in post-democracy that was the government of the technocrats in Italy ended in December when Silvio Berlusconi announced his intention to once again run for Parliament as leader of a right-wing coalition and withdrew his party’s confidence in Prime Minister Mario Monti.