ITALY is once more acting as a brake on the rest of the euro zone. On October 29th Antonio Golini, the acting head of the national statistics office, said the economy had continued to shrink in the third quarter. That contradicted the government’s view that the country’s longest recession since the second world war had already bottomed out. On the same day the finance minister, Fabrizio Saccomanni, revised downward, from -1.7% to -1.8%, his prediction for the economy’s performance in 2013. Even if growth returns in the fourth quarter, all sides agree that it will be anaemic. The lack of economic growth will make it more difficult for the government to hold its deficit-to-GDP ratio below the euro zone-mandated 3% ceiling and prevent its whopping debts of €2 trillion ($2.8 trillion) from rising above today’s level of 130% of GDP.

Italy’s depressing outlook is having scant impact on the media and the markets. Only one leading Italian daily chose to report Mr Golini’s bucket of cold water. And the next day investors bought 3 billion of ten-year Italian treasury bonds with a coupon of just 4.11%. The markets seem convinced that America’s central bank will keep money loose until at least next spring and, above all, trust the undertaking from Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, that he would do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. Hence, investors have let the spread between returns on Italian and German benchmark debt slip to 250 basis points from 475 when Mr Draghi made his promise in July 2012.

The trouble with this sanguine view is that Italy’s bleak fundamentals have so far done little to bring about the political stability needed for structural economic reform. Mr Letta’s left-right coalition was a child of necessity—the outcome of the refusal of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S) to join either side in government after taking 25% of the vote in February’s general election. But there was at least the hope that the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), to which Mr Letta belongs, and the People of Freedom (PdL), founded by Silvio Berlusconi, would be inspired by the country’s economic outlook to work in relative harmony.

Instead, the government has had to operate under mounting fire from the section of the PdL closest to Mr Berlusconi. The media proprietor and former prime minister has bullied the government into fulfilling his campaign promise to kill off a property levy. And, partly because of that, Mr Saccomanni’s budget for 2014 will do little to stimulate growth.

Mr Berlusconi, who was found guilty of tax fraud in August, also seems to feel that Mr Letta should have intervened to stop him being convicted, or at least save him from the consequences of the verdict. The most dramatic of these is likely to take effect later this month when the senate votes on whether to expel him.

Mr Berlusconi’s stance has opened a deep rift in his party between “hawks”, who want to bring the government down, and a faction that recently thwarted an attempt to do so. Several of the “doves”, including the deputy prime minister, Angelino Alfano, sit in Mr Letta’s cabinet. On October 25th Mr Alfano and four others boycotted a meeting of the PdL’s top brass at which Mr Berlusconi confirmed that he wanted the movement rebranded as Forza Italia (“Come on Italy”), the name of the party he founded at the start of his political career in the early 1990s. Though Mr Alfano said later that Mr Berlusconi’s leadership was not at issue, the two camps seem to be drifting inexorably towards a split.

In the meantime, a similar division could open up on the left. On December 8th a popular vote will decide who takes over the leadership of the PD. Few doubt it will be the eloquent, if untested, mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi. Notwithstanding his protestations of loyalty to the government, the temptation to connive at its downfall will be considerable, and will grow with passing every day, as Mr Letta adds to his experience and gravitas.

A moderate with considerable appeal to voters of the centre-right, the 38-year-old Mr Renzi holds out the promise of an outright victory for the centre-left that in turn could bring about decisive government and effective reform. Yet pollsters warn that if a vote were held before the electoral law is changed, it could produce much the same result as last time. Opinion polls show M5S holding on to more than 20% of the electorate, which is probably enough to produce another gridlocked parliament. In spite of the pressing demands of economic reality, Italy’s elected representatives are likely to waste more precious time in the coming months.