So it is The Frau’s birthday today. What can we wish her? A good and speedy retirement, perhaps? Well, what else? We could hardly wish her a good verdict in the history books of the future. She is likely to go down, not as the villain, not as a second Hitler who destroyed Europe in her own way for a third time in a century. No. Because even though history is always written by the victors rather than the vanquished, it always retains a ring of truth.

And the truth is that Frau Merkel is not a villain like her predecessor of 1940. No way. She may be mean, small minded, vindictive, arrogant, suffering from illusions of grandeur on one hand, but also an inability to see beyond the very small German centred, short term picture on the other, but she is not a deliberate villain.

No. She is simply stupid and no doubt very stubborn. Suffering from the stubbornness only very stupid people suffer from. And that is what is leading to, if it has not already achieved, the destruction of Europe by the Germans yet again. Even if, this time, in a very farcical manner.