Hello from London,

Whatever happened to the centre-right? In Australia, this weekend, the incumbent Labor Party just smashed the opposition in a national election. My faith in Speckles, an election-forecasting croc, is dashed. He had a decent soothsaying record until now and on the eve of voting had suggested the opposition Liberal Party would come to power. In fact it’s all the other way around Down Under: a landslide victory for the centre-left party of Anthony Albanese, the prime minister. The Liberals’ leader, Peter Dutton, “who had dragged his party rightwards”, even lost his seat.

Sound familiar? A few days earlier the centre-left Liberals of Mark Carney, the prime minister, trumped the opposition Conservatives in Canada. Those maple-syrup centre-rightists were damned in part by voters’ hostility to America’s president. Even in Australia, where Donald Trump has not (yet) made any claims to the territory, it appears many voters were motivated to vote for Labor as an expression of hostility to MAGA-style politics.

In Britain, after local elections on May 1st, the story looks different. Nigel Farage, a pal of Mr Trump, and Reform UK, Britain’s answer to the Trump-led Republican Party, came out triumphant. That hardly cheered the centre-left Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer, who now looks decidedly unpopular. But here, again, is a familiar theme: the biggest losers of all this week were the centre-right Conservatives, under a feeble leader, Kemi Badenoch. It’s not impossible to imagine Reform barging aside the Tories in voters’ favour. 

Does all this suggest a hollowing out of the centre of politics, at least on the right? It’s a pattern that’s all too obvious in America, where the old idea of country-club Republicans who believe in free trade, a firm foreign policy and individual rights is a distant memory.

Of course no journalistic thesis can be perfect. This coming week will see the inauguration of Friedrich Merz as Germany’s chancellor, showing a flicker of life (a late gasp?) for the centre-right in at least one big democracy. Still, I’ll claim that Mr Merz is the exception that proves my rule. Elsewhere around the world, centre-right parties look to be in a terrible hole. They are doomed if they end up looking too Trumpian, but they struggle to appeal to voters (urban, wealthy, highly educated) who now define the support for the centre-left. The centre-right, it seems, no longer has a home to go to.

I’m keeping the newsletter short this week, as it’s a holiday weekend. But let me recommend our Dateline quiz (especially for the excellent fifth question) and our 1945 archive project, which is marking the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day.

Many thanks for your messages, after I asked for your expectations for the 200th day of Mr Trump’s presidency. In short: very few of you foresee better times ahead. A special shout-out to Willie Easton in Vancouver and to a kindly nurse who reads this newsletter aloud to him each week. Wayne Christensen expects America to “slide down the steep slope of stagflation, with all the fun that will incur”. Thomas H. Stanton is waiting to see Mr Trump’s approval rating tumble much further yet. And most apocalyptic of all, Elizabeth Yznaga predicts a class war and worse in America. 

I’m not as gloomy as that. But things are looking a little wobbly for Mr Trump. Even since my newsletter of a week ago, America has seen its GDP rate revised sharply downwards and Mr Trump has fired his first high-profile colleague, Mike Waltz . One thing I can promise: this is the start of even more tumult, not of a period of calm. Finally, I’d like your views on the next pope: by this time next week the conclave may have revealed who has the post. Some say it is high time, for example, that an African takes charge. Does it matter (whether or not for Catholics) where the pontiff comes from? Write to me with your thoughts at economisttoday@economist.com.