It was ever thus - the American Cincinnatus famously conducted his "influence campaigns" with barrels of rum and of beer, and made his fortune in real estate by suckering many of his military colleagues out of the land grants that came with their mustering-out pay. Romanticizing the past appeals, but in reality Bismarck's sausage factory has always been this unlovely.

Alas for the chance to get a good drunk out of the whole rigamarole, at least. Such things would be considered shocking, perhaps career-ending, for today's politicians, but in a country that never quite fell out of love with the temperance movement, how could it be otherwise?