Amid disturbing signs that the US recovery has stalled, President Barack Obama took a huge gamble in his approach to the debt-ceiling talks last week. Believing he had an understanding with John Boehner, leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, he declared he wanted a $4,000bn “grand bargain” on the budget. Barely a day later, Mr Boehner said the deal was off. By Sunday evening, with talks about to resume at the White House, the president’s gambit appeared to have failed.

The weak economy makes a budget breakthrough all the more urgent. Jobs figures released on Friday were shockingly bad. They show that the US unemployment rate has risen again, to 9.2 per cent. In June, net job creation all but stopped. Even if uncertainty over the fiscal outlook is not the main reason for the setback, it certainly is not helping.

Quite what Mr Obama was thinking – and where things go from here – is unclear. Was his intervention a tactical feint, to weaken his Republican opponents? Was it a sudden conversion to the case for fiscal consolidation? What did the president expect to achieve?