Two things today: first, a closer look at the ECB's so-called 'Transmission Protection Instrument'.   Short take: it's open ended, with only decorative conditionality. The real constraint is that it mustn't inflate the ECB's balance sheet. So if it wants to do anything other than short-term fire-fighting in (say) Italy's bond market, it will have to do so by selling (say) German bonds.  That'll make ECB meetings fun to watch. 

Second thing: today's UK public sector deficit of £22.1bn featured an astonishing £19.9bn in interest payments. That's 23% of total spending, which is 6.2SDs above the long-term average.  Cui bono? Why, chancellor Rishi Sunak of course, hoping to step up to become PM on a Treasury-determined manifesto of immediate recession-inducing tax rises.  That unprecedented shock of interest payments could almost have been designed to illustrate the Treasury's - sorry, Rishi's - argument.  And probably was - 6.2SDs after all.