A bias for green eyes

Jenny Hill, talking to a pro-mass migration politician

Your ears did not deceive you. Jenny ‘Welcome to Germany!’ Hill was back on From Our Own Correspondent this morning, eulogising over a wonderful, hardworking, green-eyed refugee. 

(She's clearly got a think about green-eyed refugees. Her wonderful, kindly refugee last time round had "striking green eyes".)

This new report from Hamburg - ostensibly about German politics - focused on the migration issue. 

30,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the city in the past year, Jenny noted before singling out just one of them:

Take Abdul. A young man, a welder by trade from Syria. When I met him he was hard at work, blue sparks flying across the work bench and reflecting in the visor over his face. He lifted it and revealed startlingly green eyes and a big grin. 

Abdul's new boss, "a great, kindly bear of a man", is full of admiration for him. Abdul was just what he needed. Young Germans can't do these jobs. Plus, he motivates the other employees too through his hard work. 

And that's exactly the kind of thing Mrs Merkel wants to happen, said Jenny - namely a well-integrated, skilled migrant population to help with Germany's ageing population and to boost business. 

"But, of course, that's easier said than done", she added, before moving onto Melanie Leonhard, the Hamburg official responsible for integration. 

Dr Leonhard "looks tired", said Jenny, but is determined to turn the influx into "a new chance for our society and a success".

Melanie Leonhard, thankfully looking less tired

Along with other German officials Jenny has spoken to, she thinks it can be done, especially as migrant numbers have fallen dramatically since the closure of the Balkan route and migrant organisations now feel in a position to cope.

So all's starting to go well for Mrs Merkel's open-door policy, it seems. But...oh those pesky voters!

"German voters are running out of patience", she continued, and increasing turning to what Jenny called "the anti-Islam party Alternative für Deutschland":

I recently listened to one of AfD's founders speak at a hustings.  [She didn't think to either personalise him or even give his name].  

"Islam", he declared, "is a religion of blood which has no place in Germany."  

"The new arrivals are culturally behind us", he added. "They can't - or don't - want to integrate".

Of course, FOOC listeners will have heard Jenny's earlier story about grinning, hard-working, much-liked, Abdul earlier who, according to Jenny's own account, very much does want to integrate and already has integrated. They could well have heard the unnamed, rhetorical AfD founder's statements through that prism. Abdul was there to contradict him in advance.

Jenny then ended by reflecting on public trust in Mrs Merkel. Do voters believe her any longer?

To which can be added another question: Do Radio 4 listeners believe the likes of Jenny Hill any longer, with her very-carefully-chosen lovable green-eyed migrants and her ways of humanising - or not humanising - the figures in her stories to taste (as they say on squash bottles)?