Minister of Defence - a man's job?

Photo by Schildpaddie on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

The news that 40 firemen were called out on Sunday to the Berlin apartment of outgoing Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht was the final humiliation of a painful 13 months in office.

The fire, spotted through the window by passersby, was set off by a candle that had burned through an advent wreath. That is an advent wreath, it should be noted, which had been lit close to a month after Christmas… 

Let’s just say that punctuality doesn’t appear to have been a strong suit of the minister, who stepped down on Monday after being hammered by the media over her stuttering efforts to rebuild the German army.

Her record in office - a delivery of 500 helmets for Ukraine while Russia amassed troops on the border, repeated assertions that Germany had run out of weapons to give Kyiv, the failure to spend any of the €100 billion special military budget by early December, and a tone deaf New Year’s post to Instagram - has been universally seen as an unmitig…