Sam Meadows

When Labour’s Liam Byrne left a note for the incoming coalition Treasury team in 2010 which said ‘I’m afraid there is no money', it was meant as a joke. When Argentine president Javier Milei sent a similar message in his inauguration speech on Sunday, it was far from comedy. It was an honest assessment of the seriousness of the situation faced by South America’s second-largest economy. Milei won last month’s election thanks to an anti-establishment campaign in which he heavily criticised the country’s political classes and promised drastic change.

The location was the same – the circumstances starkly different. Almost 12 months ago, hundreds of thousands of people gathered on Buenos Aires’ immense central avenue to celebrate their team’s win in the World Cup. A year on, and hundreds – honking car horns and waving the blue-and-white Argentine flag – were there to celebrate the electoral victory of Javier Milei. The far-right libertarian, who describes himself as an anarcho-capitalist, began the race as a rank outsider, having only entered politics in 2020 and making his name as a bombastic television economist.