Angela Merkel told the Bundestag yesterday “It is not time to look at more growth measures. I disagree with this idea completely. The existing measures must work, they must be allowed to develop”, by which she means the monetary stimuli already implemented.

Referring to the G20 the German Chancellor said: “We need to send good psychological signals from London and not engage in a competition for unrealisable growth packages. We have already done our part.”

Already Treasury officials are back-pedalling on Gordon’s calls for yet more co-ordinated global fiscal stimulus and ceding to Franco-German demands for pan-European financial markets regulation – something that Britain has hitherto resisted. Gordon is caving in to European demands in the hope of getting a G20 boost from having got an international deal of some kind which he can spin.