Wooing Merkel is a major pre-occupation... she is coming to a private dinner in Number 10 that evening. Cameron has an idea: `Why don`t we show her a PowerPoint and give some of it in German?` The team likes the idea: it is a way of engaging her and injecting humour and informality.
... Hurriedly a presentation is cobbled together, including pictures of Cameron and Merkel hugging.
Imagine sitting through a presentation that looks like this:
While the pictures were designed to show the strength of the pair`s friendship, according to another anecdote Seldon describes in his book, Merkel wasn`t impressed.
Tired of Cameron`s posturing, she apparently let rip at the dinner, telling the prime minister how European leaders really saw him:
You keep putting yourself up as an opponent and we all hate you and isolate you.
Well. That went well then.
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