After four days of rioting in Athens that is spreading like wildfire across swaths of Greece with no sign of any respite, the Greek government, unless it is very careful, could have a rebellion on its hands. Even in these straitened times, that is an anomalous position for a member-state of the European Union.

The proximate cause of the riots is that a policeman on Saturday shot dead a 15-year old boy. But if there is an overarching reason it is that Greeks are increasingly fed up with Greece being badly governed.