Tacking right

NORTHERN Europe's voters have been swinging to the right as the continent stumbles out of recession. That shift gathered momentum yesterday in Denmark, where voters ousted a government led by the centre-left Social Democrats and cleared the way for one led by the centre-right Liberal party. Lars Løkke Rasmussen (pictured), the Liberal leader, is set to take over from Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Denmark’s first female prime minister. But the most significant result was not the swing from centre-left to centre-right, but the possibility that the new government, like that of Finland, will include a hard-right eurosceptic anti-immigrant group, the Danish People's Party (DPP).

Pollsters had predicted a virtual tie between the "blue" (right) and "red" (left) blocs, but in the end the blues secured a comfortable margin of 51.9% to 48.1%. Once the Danish dependencies of Greenland and the Faroe Islands are included, the centre-right will have 90 parliamentary seats and the centre-left 89. But while the right topped the left, it would be hard to claim that Mr Rasmussen won his rematch against Ms Thorning-Schmidt, who defeated him four years ago. A series of accounting scandals have dented voters' trust in in Mr Rasmussen, and the Liberals dropped from 26.7% and first place in the last election to 19.5% and third place this time round.