Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, was once offended beyond endurance by a physician-turned-politician, Rudolf Virchow, and challenged him to a duel.
Zero rates, quantitative easing and devaluation greatly mitigated the pain and allowed the"Iron Chancellor" George Osborne to get ahead of the bond markets with pre-emptive austerity.
The Observer turns its attention to the prime minister, claiming that he suffered an "embarrassing setback" while on his trip to Berlin to iron out differences over Iraq with the German Chancellor and the French President.