Under happier circumstances, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s look might not have been unpleasantly noticed. Dark blue suit, trousers cut a little too tight. A short coat, barely longer than a frock coat that pinches at the shoulders. One assumes that it is made of a practical, water-repellent material, because as the North Germans know, even in Berlin there is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes.

And this one here could come from one of the soon to be closed Galeria department stores – or from the grandiosely sedate traditional Hamburg store Ladage