Brussels' blunt bargaining presents austerity as Greece's only option | Phillip Inman

Naivety of Alexis Tsipras' anti-austerity request hammered home by a no-nonsense response leaving Syriza with few establishment friends

Rarely have European finance ministers given such a clear statement. To the request from Greece to scrap its toxic austerity programme, the answer was no.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, is not the worst when it comes to convoluted euro-speak. Still, he has rarely delivered such a pithy response.