No joke Outrage at laughing politician

Armin Laschet, the frontrunner in the race to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor, caused outrage yesterday when he was caught on camera laughing during a visit to a flood-ravaged town. The footage shows Mr Laschet appear to joke with several people in the background while Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president, gives a statement to television channels expressing sympathy for flood victims in the town of Erftstadt.

“Laschet laughs while the country cries,” Bild newspaper said on its website.

“This is all apparently a big joke to him,” wrote Maximilian Reimers from the Die Linke opposition party. “How could he be a chancellor?”

There was no immediate comment from Mr Laschet’s spokesman.