Leading Article: Liberalism Is a Lonely Cause at the End of This Year of Dashed Expectations

Beginning of article

WHETHER OR not this was the first year of the third millennium or the last year of the second, it started with high expectations and grand ambitions and ended with snow. It began with a mixture of hubris and bathos at the Dome, and, from the moment the river of fire failed to ignite, it became obvious that a simple round number could not carry the significance with which it was invested.

New Labour's curious strain of millennarianism finally met the cold light of day, and Jerusalem turned out not to have been builded here after all. Which is not to say progress has not been made. But the pious resolutions for a better world endorsed by the Prime Minister, the Queen and …