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A spin merchant working for Tony Blair’s Labour UK government wrote this memo at 2.55pm on September 11 2001, when millions of people were transfixed by the terrible television images of the terrorist attack.

Something similar’s going on over here.

Not quite as despicable, but very tacky nonetheless.

The State of Hessen voted in January this year,  with huge losses for the ruling Conservative party and an absolute stalemate in Parliament – Conservatives and Socialists neck and neck with 42 seats each, Liberals (tend to vote with the Conservatives) 11, Greens (ditto with the Socialists) 9 and the Linken, (pariahs that everybody – especially the Socialists’ candidate, Andrea Ypsilanti – SWORE they’d have nothing to do with 11.

Andrea Ypsilanti – not being entirely thick – works out that she could form a minority government with the Greens if the Linken would agree to “tolerate” her being in power.

Forget the fact that she promised the electorate that she’d never cooperate with the Linken, forget the fact that 70% of the elecorate is against her forming a government with the Linken playing along.

Tomorrow’s the day of the US presidential elections.

Andrea Ypsilanti figures that 4 November would be a good day to pull a crafty one – what with all the hoopla going on in the States, there’s a fair chance that the outraged voices of the voters in Hessen would be drowned out by the hysterics from across the pond.

Didn’t count on 4 members of her own party not playing along.

One – Dagmar Metzler – had said all along that she wasn’t going to betray the voters.

Good for her.

The other major player is Ypsilanti’s deputy.

She made the critical error of squeezing him out of the ministry that he wanted.

He figures “Sod this for a game of soldiers – if she goes along with this, we’ll get thumped at the next election so I’ll get a couple of other waverers onto my side, play the Valiant Moralist, squeeze Ypsilanti out of the party leadership, the pollsters will come up with massive voter support for my VM feat and I’m in like a rat up a drainpipe”

Is it any wonder that people don’t trust politicians?