It is not hard to understand why the Fund has been so quick to cover up its tracks. Even so, those are details, which should not be allowed to obscure a larger truth. As it happens, the Fund officials are right. A 'credit event’ is precisely what Greece needs.

Six years after the crisis began, the Greece remains a disaster zone. When the original bail-out was agreed, it was meant to be well on the road to recovery by now. But instead it just goes from bad to worse, to even worse still.

The economy is still contracting, shrinking by another 0.8pc in the latest quarter. Overall, output is now down by 27pc since the crisis began – to put that in perspective, in the Great Depression of the 1930s, American GDP dropped by 32pc, but it was climbing again by the middle of the decade.

Unemployment’s has climbed to punishing levels - 24pc of the workforce on the latest Eurostat data, the highest level in the EU. Its overall debt-to-GDP ratio has now hit 171pc, close on double the 91pc level that is the average across the EU, and it is still rising relentlessly every year.