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Konrad Werner: Me and Ilse

I just made friends with Ilse Aigner on Facebook. I thought I'd better do it while I still had the chance. Apparently she is about to delete her profile, and it's better if I get my networking in now, before everyone gets the idea.

Image for Konrad Werner: Me and Ilse
Photo (c) Deutscher Bundestag / Foto + Filmstelle

I just made friends with Ilse Aigner on Facebook. I thought I’d better do it while I still had the chance. Apparently she is about to delete her profile, and it’s better if I get my networking in now, before everyone gets the idea. You never know – she might be looking for someone like me to do some sarky blogging on her website.

There are other things I could do, should the Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection Minister need a hand. (When did those three ministries get put together? It’s like a collection of all the jobs that the other ministers didn’t want to do. In fact, I would suggest that these three briefs are conflicting. Farmers and consumers have exactly opposite interests. We want cheap milk that comes from a healthy, happy cow that looks over the hedge with a daisy in its mouth and moos when we cycle past. Farmers want expensive milk that comes out of a special machine made of meat and evil chemistry. Why not just have a Ministry of Crisps, Parachutes and Cardboard? That’s all I’m saying. In fact, what I’m really saying is that Ilse Aigner is the German cabinet’s “Team Leader”. Her job is entirely pretend. No, what I’m really saying is that she only did this to get more friend requests. And I fell for it! Bah!)

One of the things I thought I could do, if I were inexplicably made Aigner’s PA as a result of my friend request, is write something like this on a post-it note and stick it on her monitor one morning: “You are in government and so you are meant to think of LAWS and stuff and so you should really have a better threat up your sleeve against the evil Facebook empire than deleting your profile. Maybe a LAW or something about not passing on data to a third party. Except that that is the whole business model of a social network. You already know this, which is exactly why you don’t have a better threat. Is this really the best our elected representatives can do? Who said capitalism and democracy go together? Whoever he was he was a twat.”

I realise I would have to write this across several post-it notes and cover the entire screen with them. But I could put some on the mouse pad.