FT.com / Columnists / Wolfgang Munchau - What German history can teach Brown’s critics

FT.com / Columnists / Wolfgang Munchau - What German history can teach Brown’s critics

History, they say, is the study of events that do not repeat themselves. But there are nevertheless some uncanny parallels between the debate in the UK about Gordon Brown’s suitability as prime minister and a similar debate in West Germany in 1974. Then, large parts of the German establishment had serious doubts about the suitability for high office of Helmut Schmidt, who was finance minister at the time, with a reputation not dissimilar to that of the British chancellor of the exchequer today.