As a smart and plain-speaking political operator who never goes anywhere without his pocket chess computer, Peer Steinbrück is well aware of the difference between strategy and tactics.

Unlike Gordon Brown, the German Finance Minister has jealously guarded his hard-won reputation for fiscal caution throughout the economic crisis and is not about to make a rash tactical sacrifice at this stage of the game.

Prudence remains his Queen and Mr Steinbrück, who cut Germany’s deficit last year with a tough budget, sees the rush to borrow heavily in Britain as a reckless gambit.

The son of an architect born in Hamburg, the 61-year-old former civil servant in the West German Ministry of Construction rose to the top of regional politics in Germany’s coal and steel heartland of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2002 before taking the reins of Europe’s largest economy in 2005.

Married with three children, he is no stranger to controversy although colleagues say that he saves his most caustic remarks for private conversations.

Even so, he caused a diplomatic incident with an outspoken attack on neighbouring Switzerland earlier this year in a row over its tax haven status, saying that he wanted to “use the whip” against the country. The indignant Swiss premier said that “one does not treat a partner country in such a way” and Mr Brown must be feeling the same after another dose of Mr Steinbrück’s forthright views.

But the US has also come in for criticism from the German finance supreme for its role in precipitating the economic downturn.

“The world will never be as it was before the crisis,” he said. “The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. It does not mean that the dollar will lose its function as a reserve currency but it will be supplemented by the yen, the euro and also by the yuan. Over the next ten years, we will be dealing with four big, important currencies.”

No mention of the pound, then, from a Social Democrat nominally on the same side of the fence as Mr Brown but who, in Germany’s left-right coalition government, seems to be more conservative fiscally than the Chancellor Angela Merkel, even though she heads the right-wing Christian Democratic Union.

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