Rearrange the following into a common phrase or saying: horse, stable door, close, bolted.

That’s my reaction to the news ( FT, today) that EU finance ministers have agreed new intervention powers for Eurostat to vet member countries’ economic data. Had that been in force sooner, the Greek crisis might have been averted, or at least anticipated.

But the powers will only come into force under strictly defined circumstances and will in turn rely on Eurostat’s own economists and statisticians to crunch the numbers and rattle the cupboards in search of skeletons. In the past, politics has usually trumped statistics when difficult judgements about deficits have to be made.