With responsibility for the economic crisis squarely placed on the excesses of the free market, it was widely assumed that the recession would prove fertile ground for the centre-left. Yet, while European economies are suffering severely, EU elections have produced precisely the opposite result. Centre-left parties have been delivered a serious blow by voters. It is hard, then, on this basis, to support ruminations about the end of capitalism, or even of American-style capitalism, except possibly in the United States itself under President Barack Obama.