"Every day we read of fresh horrors," wrote Boris Johnson as we awoke to news that Greek party New Democracy will try to form a coalition after its second round of elections.
"Once proud bourgeois families queuing for bread, of people in agony because the government has run out of money to pay for cancer drugs. Pensions are being cut, living standards are falling, unemployment is rising, and the suicide rate is now the highest in the EU – having been one of the lowest...
"When things go backwards, they can go backwards fast. Technology, liberty, democracy, comfort – they can all go out of the window. However complacent we may be, in the words of the poet Geoffrey Hill, “Tragedy has us under regard”. Nowhere is that clearer than in Greece today."
Boris also suggests that Greece should leave the euro - a line that he told an audience at Hay Festival a few weeks ago.
"The best way forward would be an orderly bisection into an old eurozone and a New Eurozone for the periphery," penned the London mayor.
And he has some strong words on German control in the eurozone: "What is the meaning of Greek freedom, the freedom Byron fought for, if Greece is returned to a kind of Ottoman dependency, but with the Sublime Porte now based in Berlin?"
Boris has always had a unique approach to diplomacy. Yet his gloomy forecast may brighten many Conservatives, who are beginning to despair of the 'softly-softly' line.
And it comes after Johnson's airport slip-up, as reported by Guido this morning.
He told NY Mag:
"We have to have a new airport. One of the only reasons I want to assume supreme power in England is to make sure that happens."
He then told the interviewer: "For God’s sake, don’t quote me saying that."
At least he's upbeat about something.