GE Week 2: the view from Germany
Friday 31st May
Good morning.
It’s Friday(!), so today’s post is dedicated to what the German press has received from its UK correspondents.
Of course, it’s (almost) all about the General Election campaign (stay till the end for a report from the Gloucestershire cheese-rolling festival).
Here’s a summary of what each of the papers had to say:
Michael Neudecker of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany’s equivalent of the Guardian) goes behind the scenes on the two campaigns. He notes with amusement that the ‘strategy’ teams for the Tories and Labour are led by an Australian (Isaac Levido) and and Irishman (Morgan McSweeney), and gives a brief profile of each.
Interestingly, Neudecker reports speaking to Birmingham MP Jess Philips about Labour’s very cautious election strategy, compared in the past to ‘carrying a Ming vase across a polished floor’. Here’s what she had to say:
“"I understand about the Ming vase," said Labour MP Jess Phillips recently in an interview with the SZ, adding that it would be fatal if Starmer dropped the vase before he reached his destination. But sometimes it can be good not to think about it all the time.”
Reports from the middle-of-the-road papers, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the weekly Die Zeit, focus on the fact that so many Conservative MP’s are stepping down ahead of the election. Die Zeit focuses particularly on the fact that so many of the cast of the Brexit saga— Bill Cash, John Redwood, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Michael Gove, and most notably, Nigel Farage— are not seeking seats in the next Parliament. Farage’s mention of his interest in the US presidential election, and rumoured connections to the Trump campaign, are noted.
The self-styled radical paper Tageszeitung (or ‘taz’) covers the fracas surrounding Labour’s painful foundering over Diane Abbott’s candidacy in Hackney and Stoke Newington following her recent reinstatement to the PLP. It gives a sympathetic profile of Abbott, seeming to carefully allude to the idea that her suspension just over a year ago after her controversial comments about Jewish people, Irish people and Travellers suffering from racism, was a bit of a stitch-up.
On the very different end of the spectrum, Handelsblatt, Germany’s answer to the Financial Times, reports on Labour’s success in gaining endorsements from 120 CEO’s. ‘Labour leader Keir Starmer,’ the trade paper says, ‘has been working with (Shadow Chancellor Rachel) Reeves for years to shake off the socialist image his party cultivated under his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn and improve its relationship with business.’
The article also covers the suspicion of some business leaders towards Labour’s New Deal for Working People, and claims that Keir Starmer ‘has already weakened the package under pressure from the business community, which in turn has earned him the displeasure of the trade unions.’
“Käserennen in England”
To paraphrase Gary Lineker: Cheese-rolling’s a simple game: everyone chases a wheel of cheese down a hill, and a German wins. FAZ reports on the news that a Munich man, Tom Kopke (22, above, in the hi-vis) was this year’s cheese-rolling champion. What the average German must make of this, reader, I have no answer.
Schönes Wochenende! I’ll be back on Monday.