The real issue: how can we find an escape route out of the eurozone?

SO, the situation the Government was trying to avoid has come about. Whether or not it was strictly necessary, elected representatives have been elbowed aside by officials from Europe.

Looking back, was it all horribly predictable? Nothing is inevitable in life and the same is true in politics and economics. But don’t we have a right to question so-called expert opinion? Take economists. Few, if any, of them saw the financial crisis coming in 2007. Worse, many economists complacently imagined their genius had made such a series of events almost impossible.

Following the 1987 stock market crash, the Asian financial crisis and the end of the dotcom boom the profession began to believe it knew it all. Follow their prescriptions, we were told, and stability would be ensured — no more setbacks turning into global catastrophes.