Sweaty palms, pale cheeks

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Dear Reader,

You know those anxiety dreams where you are standing in front of a large crowd and it dawns on you that you have had no time to prepare, and you have no idea what you are going to say?

I’m always reminded of them when I watch Economy Minister Robert Habeck delivering his annual report on the state of the German economy.

Every January, the normally eloquent Habeck's face drains of blood as he tries to wrap his tongue around the technical jargon of his ministry in the vain hope that doing so will distract his audience from the miserable figures he has to present.

For thirty minutes, he prevaricates and obfuscates, or points at a graph that shows why the economic weather is actually far better than the headlines would have you believe.

Back in January 2023, he managed to eat up the first five minutes of his presentation by philosophising on the ins and outs of supplying weapons to Ukraine. Once he'd sensed that the first eyelids had begun to droop, he dropped the bombshell that t…