There is something ghoulish about the way the rest of the world is watching Sweden’s experience with the coronavirus pandemic. 

The country’s refusal to go for a hard lockdown has seen it hailed by rightwing populists around the world. By contrast, the liberal left in much of Europe and America seems almost eager to hear that the experiment has ended in disaster and despair.

Inevitably, the actual situation in Sweden stubbornly refuses to conform to the ideological biases of the outside world. On balance, the pessimists seem to be winning the argument. But this model for tackling coronavirus has very little to do with libertarianism or rightwing populism. Instead, it looks like a very Swedish sort of failure — linked to a left-leaning country’s excessive faith in its own scientific prowess and bureaucratic elite.