In our case, the failure of Labour to treat financiers with the necessary wariness — the one sensible economic instinct previous generations could count on from a centre-Left party — has cut the ground from under social democrats. We shouldn't be too surprised by their disarray. Past recessions have not produced the equivalent of a Roosevelt or an Obama in Britain. The Great Crash of 1929 split the Labour Party and drove it from office in 1931. The Tories remained in power until 1945. Labour split again in 1983 during the 20th century's second great era of mass unemployment and once again the Tories dominated Westminster for a generation. In hard times, people protect hearth and home. They worry about themselves and their families and are less willing than ever to hand over their money to strangers. The good side of austerity can be a puritan respect for public money. 

I hope that soon the BBC's presenters will not be able to pose as tribunes of the people without admitting to their audience that they live like princes at public expense and that the taxpayers will be able to hold the civil service to account for what it does in their name and  with their money. The darkness, I fear, will be seen in the mean treatment of fellow citizens who are on the dole through no fault of their own, and who will be forced on to inadequate workfare programmes to train them for jobs that don't exist. 

What I think will distinguish the crisis most from its predecessors will be the raging suspicion with which the British view their rulers. Calls for sacrifice will not sound convincing from a political class which has launched lifeboats for bankers. Demands for citizens to do their duty and pay their taxes come ill from politicians who have evaded both. To respond to a crisis of capitalism by electing the Tories may seem yet another example of the famously perverse English sense of humour. David Cameron, I suspect, is about to find out that trying to govern this embittered country will be no joke.