Europe’s problems remain painfully real. But it was wrong to believe that they would inevitably lead to a cataclysmic crisis. It now looks as if it’s going to be much worse. There is never going to be a solution, just a slow, ongoing decline. Not a purgatory from which there is an eventual escape route to heaven, but a Dantean inferno with its famous inscription above the gates: ‘Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate’ – ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’ [...]