Europe’s baleful bail-outs

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: campaign. They were “delighted” whenever he promised to block the state aid—with the understanding that, of course, they would condemn the commission’s move in public. “I am sure they do the same today,” says Mr Monti. If this crisis deepens, he says, EU competition policy, especially when it comes to policing mergers, can only become more important. Yet he thinks Mr Sarkozy also has a point: politicians must be seen to protect ordinary citizens to prevent a backlash against globalisation and the markets.

Squaring that circle will be hard. An increase in political meddling in the economy is inevitable. But politicians should not pretend they will be acting in the interests of all whenever they open the money tap. The cigar-chomping tycoons of political cartoons have real-life equivalents: oligarchs, monopolists and the operators of cartels. And their closest friends are often politicians.