Racist Pricks

The great British sense of humour, as exemplified in the rise of UKIP and the Prime Minister's delightful put-downs of pushy females, is famously conspicuous by its absence in our Teutonic cousins. A member of the German Green party has complained to the condom manufacturer R&S about an order of custom-built contraceptives by the youth wing of the National Democratic Party. The little swine dispatched them to lawmakers in black boxes labelled "For foreigners and certain Germans", along with a letter accusing the recipients of "failing to provide the foundations for a family policy which will halt the demographic catastrophe facing our people." It seems that Britishness is not the only national purity which is in danger these days.

In this country, of course, the perpetrators of such a stunt would swiftly be established as harmless clowns with columns in respectable media outlets and regular appearances on game shows and other current-affairs television; but Germany, with its recent history of racism, imperialism and military aggression, has a less easy-going attitude. R&S apologised and pledged to donate the proceeds from the order to a foundation against right-wing extremism and anti-semitism. In modern Europe, evidently, a foundation against anti-immigrantism was too much to hope for.