Reading the political pages of Brazil’s newspapers it is easy to form the view that nothing has changed since the bad old days of the early 1990s, when the country teetered on the brink of collapse, with runaway inflation and a president soon to be defenestrated by impeachment proceedings for corruption.

Then, as now, the papers were full of extraordinary revelations concerning the questionable behaviour of Brazil’s political leaders. Then, as now, most of those politicians were able, with a good dose of chutzpah, to ride out the storm.