A Venezuelan tragedy

For how long can you keep apologising for the self-made catastrophe that is Venezuela? Years of socialist experiment has reduced what was once the richest country in Latin America to a land of rampant corruption, empty supermarket shelves, hyper-inflation and plunging incomes. According to one survey, around 90 per cent of the population now lives in poverty.

So degraded has the democratic system become, that the main opposition party urged a complete boycott of Sunday’s sham presidential election, which duly returned Nicolás Maduro for a further six years of power on a record low turnout. At least John Mcdonnell, the UK shadow Chancellor, has had the decency to admit that a regime long lauded by Labour’s hard-left leadership as a model for others – including very possibly Britain – has somewhere along the line lost its way.

But only because it took a “wrong turn” after the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013 and is “no longer a socialist country”, says Mr Mcdonnell. The unvarnished truth is that Venezuela’s slide into the abyss began the moment Chávez assumed power. That the Left can even remotely continue to defend a form of government that has impoverished its people and routinely locks up its political opponents demonstrates almost wilful disregard for the facts. Both Mr Mcdonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, have repeatedly declared their admiration for Chavez’s Venezuela. Given the chance, they would visit the same madness on Britain. At the weekend, Mr Mcdonnell recommitted himself to “the overthrow of capitalism” and its replacement with “a socialist society”. To see what that world would be like, voters need only to look at the tragedy of this once-thriving country.