We need leadership - not vacillating politicians - to fix this

It's been widely, and correctly, stated that the current crisis bears eerie similarities with the banking crisis we all endured in 2009. But there is a key difference.

Last time around, the double act of Gordon Brown and Dominique Strauss-Kahn bestrode the globe, hammering out massive, co-ordinated actions between central banks, governments and banking chiefs. Actions which gripped the crisis by the horns and, through the size and scope of their dramatic interventions, shocked the markets into sense, preventing a collapse of the global banking system.

This time, we have large numbers of vacillating politicians wringing their hands on the beaches and mountain resorts of Europe not really knowing what to do, paralysed by fear of the short-term electoral impact of any longer-term strategic plan.

We have a bitterly divided European Central Bank - split according to its executives' national political agendas.

We have a brand-new IMF leader already being hobbled by corruption allegations.

So it is that, instead of policymakers leading the markets with bold, even shocking policy measures, a series of timid European compromises and half-deals have emerged with a whimper which fails to address any fundamental problems.

At a time when we need radical political and economic reform in Europe, the effect of having no chain of command in the eurozone has never been more stark.

Indeed, it is a mark of how used we have become to inadequate policymaking from world leaders that last month's "crunch" European summit on Greece was hailed at the time as a success. This despite, as Brown himself pointed out yesterday, no restructuring of the banks, no significant co-ordination of monetary and fiscal policy, no massive expansion of the bailout fund, no targeted aid for Italy and Spain.

Only last Thursday, the ECB was categorically refusing to buy bonds in those two countries. Then, last night, after two days of mayhem in the markets, policymakers agreed a U-turn. Instead of our leaders giving the markets a direction with clear policy actions, the markets are leading the leaders.

The volte face this morning has given us some respite from the panicky sell-offs of last week, but far greater, bolder actions are clearly needed to restore any longer term sense of calm. For that, we need leadership - a commodity in very short supply.