Merkel doesn’t like Miliband as much as Cameron – yet
Angela Merkel likes David Cameron. This is the impression I get well beyond the spin drummed out by No. 10. He and his family were after all invited to Mutti’s weekend retreat with her husband, the almost invisible quantum chemist with whom she the quantum physicist has shared her very private life.
Mutti made breakfast pancakes for the Camerons. She clearly hoped that she could defuse his niggling Euro-scepticism with a hearty dose of motherliness and Gemuetlichkeit (cosiness). Until she realised that she came upon an obstacle called the Tory party in an election year with Ukip breathing down its neck.
Berlin is genuinely worried that the UK is slithering towards an exit and that Cameron has embarked on a gamble that he can’t win because his party is too insurgent and because his own heart isn’t in it. Notwithstanding the ranks of cultural pro-Europeans in the UK, the issue of the EU divides Germany and Britain as much as religion or guns divide us and the USA. We don’t get it. They don’t get us. It’s a matter of national DNA forged through geography and history.
There are of course nuances and exceptions to this. Nick Clegg, the son of a Dutch English union, married to a Spaniard, fluent in five European languages, is even more European than Angela Merkel. But he is also Nick Clegg.
And then there is Ed Miliband. The German chancellor has snubbed him on this occasion. The Labour leadership is miffed that they weren’t told about the visit and that Frau Merkel would rather pop into the British Museum to see an exhibition about her country – excellent by the way- than spend quality time with the man who might be the next prime minister.
Mr Miliband needn’t worry too much. If he doesn’t win the next election he probably won’t be in a position to get vexed about snubs. And if he does win then Angela Merkel will be relieved to have a prime minister who won’t gamble with a British exit from Europe and whose politics are in fact closer to hers.
She shares his suspicion of freewheeling markets, bankers and fat cats. Although she hails from the centre right her political instincts are closer to Ed Miliband’s than to David Cameron’s. She just doesn’t like him as much. Yet.
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