Meanwhile, the courts began the process of winding down Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide, another distressed lender, to comply with the terms of Ireland's bail-out by the European Union.

More recently the agencies have been accused of being too harsh, and even of being part of an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy to hold down the southern European nations.

So let's be clear. This is our future, our Anglo-American future, our European future - and we're blowing it.