Given voter anxiety and anger at the misdemeanours of bankers, rising joblessness, failing mortgages and a worsening economic crisis, there were expectations that voters would lash out at incumbent governments, blaming them. This would have disproportionately hit the centre-right parties dominating the countries of the EU, the European parliament, and the political appointees running the European commission. It did happen to a small degree. But centre-left governments in power in Britain, Spain, Portugal, Hungary and Austria suffered much bigger losses – the Hungarian socialists, the Austrian social democrats and Gordon Brown's Labour slumping to historic lows.