To varying degrees, Angela Merkel has now managed to alienate the USA, Russia and the rest of Europe. Germany urgently needs to tackle negative perceptions of the country.

Oscar Wilde was fond of citing the philosopher George Berkeley. Whether it was because he enjoyed his fellow Irishman’s writings or because Berkeley was a Trinity College Dublin grandee is moot. When I lived in Berlin, almost every German would reference Heinrich Boll’s Irisches Tagebuch when learning of my nationality.