German press: Boris Johnson, the cold shower and the potatoes

Johnson’s resignation, hot water in Saxony and the new head of Germany’s anti-discrimination agency are the topics of the review.

In a category with politicians like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro or Benjamin Netanyahu places the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung British Prime Minister Boris Johnson after he resigned from the leadership of the Conservative Party, calling these politicians populists because they claim to represent the true will of the people – against the “establishment” from which they themselves usually come. Johnson repeatedly invoked the will of the electorate to stay in power, the Frankfurt paper added. In a democracy, that’s right. However, in order to remain in power, you also need credibility. If you lose one, you usually lose the other, comments FAZ.

By resigning, Johnson at least spared the British people an attack on Parliament, like that of Trump’s supporters in Congress, the paper notes. In the Shakespearean drama staged at Westminster, important institutional mechanisms continued to operate. The prime minister’s lies and scandals were not covered up. The Conservatives accepted defeat in the recent by-elections and rebelled against the prime minister himself. In the United States, this is no longer self-evident, which shows that there is still a difference in the political culture of the US and Europe, the paper notes.

It is not possible without drama, Handelsblatt comments on Johnson’s resignation, while criticizing the British Prime Minister as a “political clown”. Many Britons should be relieved that the days of wondering whether their prime minister is telling the people the truth or fooling them once again are over. That’s what Johnson did with Brexit, which he first promoted with fake numbers and then sold as a big win for his country, the financial paper insists. In fact, Britain is in a worse economic situation today than it would be in the EU. While he concludes that the country deserves to be governed competently and seriously. Johnson, according to Handelsblatt, was unable to do this.

Cold shower

In the shadow of the war in Ukraine and rising energy prices, Germans are also struggling to adapt to the new economic reality. In Diepoldiswaldne, Saxony, according to Tageszeitung (taz)the city’s housing association limited hot water during the day to a total of ten hours.

The cooperative was forced to proceed with this unprecedented for German standards, because the advances it gave in the past year to the local energy supplier were around 100,000 euros. This year they are expected to quadruple according to taz.

The example of this small town seems to be followed by a giant in the field of real estate. On Thursday, real estate company Vonovia, which owns around 500,000 homes across Germany, announced it would reduce the heating temperature to 17 degrees Celsius at night where natural gas is used. In this way, up to 8 percent of heating costs can be saved, taz reports.

The golden potato

Despite criticism from Christian Democrats, Christian Socialists, and the Alternative for Germany, Turkish-born journalist Ferda Ataman was elected as the new head of the federal anti-discrimination agency. Her candidacy with the support of the governing coalition sparked heated debates. Ataman blames the Neue Zürcher Zeitung for discrimination against the Germans, whom she likened years ago, in an article in Spiegel, to potatoes. In fact, as president of the journalistic association “Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen” he established the “golden potato” award for articles and reports that were judged to be particularly racist.

In the false claims, insults and slanders against Ataman, Berlin’s Tageszeitung distinguishes an “orchestrated campaign of the right-wing camp”. NZZ, on the other hand, considers it a political error of the coalition to elect an activist to office, who, according to the newspaper, thinks in ethnic terms and mocks the German people.

Efthymis Angeloudis

SOURCE: Deutsche Welle