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| Angela Merkel, Empress of Europe |
BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson's piece on the plight of Mrs Merkel on this morning's Today sounded a wistful and admiring note. It ended:
It feels like the last chapter of an important, possibly an irreplaceable, European legend.
It was The European Legend's decision to open doors of Germany (during what the BBC man called "the refugee crisis", though others - more accurately - call it "the migrant crisis") that's cost her dear, he said, as the last election showed:
Angela Merkel went, Theresa-May-like, into an election in September and got a real pasting. Her Conservative group scored worse than at any time since the West German state was founded. The Socialists did quite badly too, but the right-wing - too far right-wing - Alternative für Deutschland won its first seats in the Bundestag.
You'll note the opinion hiding in full view there: the too far right-wing AfD.
Update: Please see Ozfan's comment below. JS was talking BS.
Update: Please see Ozfan's comment below. JS was talking BS.
I'm glad I didn't hear it. i'm increasingly intolerant of old BBC bores like Simpson. Why is his opinion worth listening to? He fame rests on having a good voice and TV appearance not his intellect. But they and the BBC forget this.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course he's wrong in his comparison of Merkel's failure with May's. The German elections were long scheduled and Merkel's failure not a result ot hubris (like May) but very clearly because the Germans are fed up of her and her disastrous, knee-jerk (seemingly) allowance of millions of unscreened immigrants which has unleashed a wave of terrorism, violence and economic worries. Oh and threatening the stability of the EU to the West and East too.
But still the Beeb loves Angela.
Well spotted!
DeleteI'd completely missed the fact that he was talking complete rubbish about Mrs Merkel 'doing a Theresa May' over the election.
This election was indeed planned. German federal elections are held every four years and this was four years to the month since the previous election.
That voice of his lulled must have me into not noticing that he was talking drivel.
One thing the BBC are very reluctant to tell us is just how much Merkel's Madness is now costing the Germans. It's now about 30 billion Euros per annum - a huge, huge cost (probably about 1000 Euros per household) that I think is likely to go up, not down thanks to chain migration. (I do recall an unusually honest Radio 4 programme on the migrant wave which reported that virtually every single one of the migrants had one or more relatives who they wished to bring into Germany after them.)
Deletehttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany-costs/german-government-plans-to-spend-93-6-billion-euros-on-refugees-by-end-2020-spiegel-idUSKCN0Y50DY
For the speaking of complete rubbish, he seems very well paid (still?):
Deletehttp://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/emolument.html
Maybe Franny could get the old fact checker on his output on a £/porky bars?
I have lost all respect for John Simpson as a serious impartial journalist since his comments about the media's role in the outcome of the EU Referendum made in October 2016 - summarised as: 'if only the BBC had exposed the lies of the media, then the result of the referendum would have been different'.
ReplyDeleteThese sentiments portrayed him as aloof, out of touch, arrogant and with a dismissive attitude towards Leave voters that opposed his own biased position - ie the majority of the UK.