German communist in hot water after dining out on lobster

By the time she had realised her mistake – that as one of Germany’s top communists she should probably not be seen eating lobster – it was too late.There was no time to switch from the €22 (£16) “rich man’s dish” to a more modest platter of kippers, because Sahra Wagenknecht had already been caught on camera in the act of betraying her own political ideals.

£16 for lobster! That’s a pretty cheap restaurant… or it’s selling that awful North American ‘lobster’. Which maybe explains why she didn’t want to be seen eating it.

Anyway, I can find no diktat by Marx or Engels stating that no communist shall eat lobster. So how is this woman “betraying her own political ideals”? Should all communists wear hair shirts and practise self-flagellation? This woman is an MEP, part of the gravy train on a basic salary of 7000 euros per month. Look at her website, she wears designer clothes and has an expensive haircut (apparently to mimic Rosa Luxemburg). It’s all just image management, as pointed out…

These are sensitive times, with studies showing that inequality in Germany is growing. Shows of wealth by politicians and reports of hefty bonuses for managers regularly make for negative headlines.

So it’s OK to earn 84,000 euros p.a., but not to eat a cheap lobster in public.

“I don’t do anything that I say others shouldn’t do,” she told the daily TAZ. “On the contrary, I’m fighting for a society in which everyone can afford to eat lobster.”

Bravo! Let them eat lobster!

Anyway, this reminded me that over the weekend I saw 4 or 5 people from YAFA demonstrating outside a restaurant in York to stop the sale of foie gras. York City Council, bleatingly led by this vegevangelist passed a motion discouraging the sale of foie gras in the city. With no power to ban any sale, the coucil has banned foie gras on its own premises.

I would have stopped to talk to them, but was laughing too heartily to speak. I like foie gras, and don’t want some lily-livered nincompoop who has most likely never tased the delicious incomparable richness of a good foie gras stopping me from eating it should I choose to do so.

These campaigns have already robbed us of freely available veal – although where we would get milk from if we didn’t take calves away from their mothers I don’t know. (And lamb, of course, is no problem, is it?). There appears to be selective moralising going on – when was the last time you saw anyone protesting about battery chickens, of which there are over 20 million in the UK, requiring the slaughter of 20-30 million cock chicks? Not sexy enough… or too ‘old school’ vegan, perhaps?

Paul Blanchard is “Managing Partner of the PR and marketing company Right Angles.”

Paul, some advice.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 11:25 am and is filed under Bollocks, Eat, Politricks.