The working assumption has to be that this is indeed the Tsipras game plan, for, despite his denials, there is no other way of explaining the hokey-pokey of his negotiating tactics. Whatever else he might be, he is not a complete fool, and he must know that his two substantive demands – to end the austerity but to stay in the euro, suckling, like some kind of welfare dependent, from the teat of international hand-outs – are incompatible and will never be acceptable to eurozone partners.