This is Iain Martin’s weekly newsletter exclusively for Reaction subscribers.
At the end of Decca Aitkenhead’s weekend interview with Angela Merkel, the writer passes on a message: “As we say goodbye, I tell her how many people asked me to beg her to return to political life.”
What? There cannot be that many people looking at European affairs right now, following the implosion of Merkel’s disastrous Russia and energy policies, who say that we need the former Chancellor of Germany back in office in Berlin. Aren’t we all in enough trouble already? Perhaps there are a few corners of the London media where the terrible idea of a Merkel comeback is genuinely being advocated by real people, and the interviewer Decca just happens to know more than her fair share of them.