But there is a deeper issue to be tackled: why does the economy have to be stimulated in artificial ways through the boosting of lending to dodgy borrowers? Why isn’t the spending power and willingness there for non-dodgy parts of the economy?

There are, I think, three good, and not mutually exclusive, answers. First, there is chronic underspending in the euro-zone. The main culprit is Germany. It is running a current account surplus of 7½pc of GDP. Over the last 18 years, German consumer spending has grown by only 18pc, compared with a 53pc increase by UK consumers.

For France and the Club Med members of the euro-zone the essential reason behind low spending is different: the rank failure of the labour market, reflected in appallingly high unemployment, which restricts the size of total consumer incomes (and therefore spending). Moreover, the excessive regulation of the labour market also depresses investment opportunities and increases the perceived risk of expansion.

Readers of my book, The Trouble with Europe, will need no reminding of my view that the first part of the problem has been caused mainly by the euro. But the malfunctioning of the European labour market has its roots in the over-ruling of market forces by armies of bureaucrats and lawyers, at both the national and EU level, in misguided pursuit of some sort of “social solidarity”.

David Fuller's view

It is worth reading the rest of Roger Bootle’s informative column.