Jacob Christensen

They don’t make them like they used to. Here’s the one and only Helmut “Schnauze” Schmidt:

And a remarkably subdued Franz Josef Strauss:

Both with a little help from Loriot.

Much has been said about this incident:

So here’s Ze Fohreign Minister (designate) spieking English. Is he better or worse than Anders Fogh?

So, how did I do in my prediction of the distribution of portfolios?

It was 8 CDU, 3 CSU and 5 FDP as I predicted, but then problems began:

Chancellor – CDU (correct)
Minister of chancery – CDU (correct)
Foreign – FDP (correct)
Finance – CDU (WRONG! I predicted CSU)
Trade and Industry – FDP (correct)
Internal – CDU (correct)
Justice – FDP (correct)
Labour and Social Affairs – CDU (correct)
Consumer and Agriculture – CSU (correct)
Defence – CSU (WRONG! I predicted CDU)
Families, etc – CDU (correct)
Health – FDP (WRONG! I predicted CSU)
Transport and infrastructure – CSU (WRONG! I predicted FDP)
Environment – CDU (correct)
Education and research – CDU (WRONG! I predicted FDP)
Development – FDP (WRONG! I predicted FDP)

So, six out of sixteen portfolios wrong. Oh dear.

At least nobody had seen Günther Oettinger as the next German EU commissioner. (Kosmopolito blog on Oettinger).

And if you feel like reading some 130 pages of German, here’s the coalition agreement.