Speaking of Sozis… Failing to lead from the front, Martin Shulz is now hightailing it out of the shambles he helped create in Brussels and will now lead from behind in Berlin. Or maybe he won’t. Nobody who has ever paid any attention to this guy seems to particularly care.

This guy has never accomplished anything but spend a whole lot of time on any German political talk show you can think of being THE expert on any “European” subject you can think of talking about. He helped a lot with Greece (not). He stopped Brexit from happening (not), he helped solve Europe’s refugee crisis and its deficit spending crisis and on an on and on (lots more nots here). He lectured US-Amerika right and left (mostly right) about all those things Europeans lecture US-Amerika about. He did that particularly well, I must say, but he’s just one of legion in that department so who needs him? In other words, he was the perfect non-elected European bureaucrat boss-type and he will be sorely missed until his replacement non-elected European bureaucrat boss-type is crowned by whoever it is who crowns them – so he/she can then carry on where Schulz left off. Accomplishing nothing. But with style.

The long-serving parliament boss will stand as an MP for his Social Democratic party in North Rhine-Westphalia, opening the door for a potential run at the German chancellorship in elections next year. Speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, an emotional Mr Schulz said: “It was not an easy decision.”