How do you solve the European sovereign debt crisis? Well, it’s complicated, obviously. But, from the flurry of metaphors that have been employed, it certainly appears to involve ripping off a plaster, grasping some nettles and – above all – for everyone to stop kicking cans down the road.

Or, as a senior investment banker put it to me in a slightly less clichéd fashion last week, European politicians need to convince the markets that the worst day of the crisis was yesterday. Companies and investors will only regain their confidence when they believe things have got as bad as they're going to get.