Otto von Bismarck, the 19th-century German chancellor, has been quoted as saying: “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” Rishi Sunak has not been in office for long enough to qualify as a fool in Bismarck’s definition. But he could have learned from the mistakes of Bismarck’s modern-day successors. The UK and Germany have very different economic problems. Germany had become reliant on old industries and technology. Brexit has exacerbated the UK’s pre-existing economic ailments such as low productivity and the dependence of its financial industry on the eurozone. What both countries have in common is that their economic models are unsustainable, and that their political leaders have dropped the ball.
Angela Merkel’s politics of the last decade is a cautionary tale, one that holds lessons for Sunak. For all her analytic rigour, Merkel was uninterested in solving problems. She agreed to global emissions benchmarks and Nato military spending targets that she had no means of meeting.
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