Really, what is it about Von Der Leyen?
There's always this sort of whiff of behaving badly. Not like a sort of stench of a massive 💩 of corruption, more a smell of unpleasantness that does not go away.
There's always this sort of whiff of behaving badly. Not like a sort of stench of a massive 💩 of corruption, more a smell of unpleasantness that does not go away.
She gets the firm Story Machine involved to get accounts for her verified while in the process to become Commission President
Why you need a firm to do this is beyond me. Twitter sorted that for me in a couple of days, and I am just a low life blogger.
Why you need a firm to do this is beyond me. Twitter sorted that for me in a couple of days, and I am just a low life blogger.
But the firm Story Machine is run by former Bild editor Kai Diekmann, and apparently now the Commission President is paying them for advice... out of her own pocket
MSN News summarises what's going on:
msn.com/de-de/nachrich…
MSN News summarises what's going on:
msn.com/de-de/nachrich…
Her Spokesperson @MamerEric said that the company gives Von Der Leyen feedback about her presence on social media every 4 to 6 weeks, but has nothing to do with how Tweets are prepared.
So that's all clear then.
So that's all clear then.
And while Mamer talked about that on the record - I presume at a Midday Briefing - this is what you get when searching all Commission websites for "Story Machine"
Nada.
google.de/search?sxsrf=A…
Nada.
google.de/search?sxsrf=A…
Then @hmtillack has more about the firm's questionable behaviour for Stern here:
stern.de/politik/deutsc…
stern.de/politik/deutsc…
I cannot imagine Von Der Leyen would be so naive so as to assume no one would find out? Credit to @remohess for doing so:
After her questionable means to employ external consultants while Defence Minister in Germany, surely she should know 👀 are on her?
After her questionable means to employ external consultants while Defence Minister in Germany, surely she should know 👀 are on her?
And now further credit to @daniel_freund and @nicosemsrott for hammering the issue further.
It's one thing to use such a firm, paid from your own pocket, to help you become Commission President, essentially a political process.
It's one thing to use such a firm, paid from your own pocket, to help you become Commission President, essentially a political process.
It's quite something else to then keep on using that firm - and that firm having an impact on your communication on official Commission channels - when there has been no tender, and it is not known what is being offered on what terms.
(A previous tweet here said @POLITICOEurope hadn’t written about this - it *has* but they wrote Storymachine without a space which meant my search on their website didn’t find it. Hence tweet deleted.)
And the main point stands however: this is poor and grubby from Von Der Leyen
/ends
/ends
