It's lunchtime for Italy ...

From The Spectator blog today:

"Being a politician in Rome these days is a bit like sitting in a nice Trattoria, surrounded by a large group of office colleagues.  You’ve just finished a long lunch but no one wants to ask for the bill because it is obvious from the carnage on the table that its going to be a whopper, and it is equally obvious that no one has any money to pay for it all.

"In such circumstances there is zero upside in being the person who asks for the bill, or tries to get people to empty their pockets.  The only sensible thing to do is to continue to order bottles of limoncello and wait for the German restaurant owner to chuck everyone out.

"Italy is unable to reform.  No one can afford to expend the political capital necessary to take on the many and varied vested interests.  In the old days, the Pope would have called for a jubilee, a once in a generation carnival of debt write-offs. Nowadays, the equivalent might be a currency devaluation.

"The problem is, of course, that right now, the Italians are using someone else’s currency."

Nothing bad will ever happen to Italy ...