Simon English: No Dave – it's time to muddle through

Outlook: The time for action is now. We must be bold. Tinkering won't cut it anymore. Yes, yes. Politician gives speech. Hurray to good things. Boo to bad things. Film at 11.

David Cameron's words to the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday were fairly standard stuff. Of course, anyone talking about how the time for talking is over is always in danger of looking slightly silly, like those windy speakers always demanding brevity from everyone else.

The notion that eurozone leaders need to start moving much more quickly is regular fare in the City. Honestly, why don't these bureaucrats get organised and do something?

One answer is that problems which took years to develop aren't going to get solved overnight. It will be months and months of very dull meetings in very boring rooms before anything truly tangible can be decided.

That's surely as it should be. Countries shouldn't be bullied into positions that later turn out to be disadvantageous just so that markets and the people who work in them can get back to what they consider business as normal.

Doing things in haste and scarpering with a slice of the money is the way the worst bankers behave; it shouldn't be a model for everyone else.

If there really is a horrendous day of reckoning coming our way, where on earth is the advantage in making that day tomorrow?

So let's hear an alternative script from at least someone at Davos.

Now is the time to delay. To muddle through and to tinker. To kick cans down roads. Nobody should move too suddenly. We will live forever, one day at a time...