GERMANY: Does he or doesn't he? German eyes were on a Hanover courtroom yesterday where lawyers for the Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, took action against a German wire agency who claimed he dyes his hair.
But Mr Schröder is likely to have a few more grey hairs by the time the Hanover court returns its verdict on May 17th.
The case has become a matter of honour for the image-conscious Chancellor. "Anyone who insinuates that I dye my hair insinuates that I always lie," he said.
The matter came to a head after German wire agency DDP asked a German image consultant how the Chancellor could improve his standing with voters. Mr Schröder would be more credible to voters, the constulant said, "if he didn't dye his temples". Shortly after the story was posted, the Chancellor's lawyers retaliated in a statement: "The Chancellor's temples are not dyed" - and the implication was that an injunction awaited anyone who implied differently.
DDP issued a clarification saying: "The Chancellor attaches great importance to the fact that his hair is not dyed." Mr Schröder felt the DDP's retraction was a further joke at his expense and instructed his lawyers to take the wire agency to court yesterday to prevent them repeating the allegation.
"Anyone who has come so close to his head as I have would see that he also has grey hairs," said Mr Udo Walz, star hairdresser in Berlin. "If our biggest problem in Germany is whether the Chancellor dyes his hair, well then it seems as though things are going really well." The trouble is that things could not be going worse.
The economy is in recession, unemployment is stuck at over 4 million and the opposition conservatives are ahead in the polls.
