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A German politician has been mocked for uploading a surreal campaign video in which he cavorts around in a wolf costume and nuzzles the neck of a party colleague dressed as Red Riding Hood.
Thomas Diener, an MP for the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU), from the northern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern region, filmed the video to promote a reform to local hunting laws which will make it easier to cull dangerous wolves in certain circumstances.
In the video posted on social media, Mr Diener, 60, is seen creeping around a tree wearing a Big Bad Wolf Costume before surprising his colleague Ann Christin von Allwörden, 45, who is holding a picnic basket and wearing a Red Riding Hood outfit.
Instead of eating her as the fairy tale usually plays out, Mr Diener embraces Ms von Allwörden and they shake hands. Then the camera cuts to the pair sitting on a bench, with Mr Diener speaking to his social media followers without his wolf mask on.
“We have finally succeeded in the years-long struggle to get the wolf included in the hunting law, a demand made by the CDU a long time ago,” he says. “In this sense it is a bit easier to sit with Red Riding Hood on a bench. Before this, Red Riding Hood had to be afraid. This is better.”
All the better to eat you with
The camera cuts to a new scene in which Mr Diener, with his wolf mask back on, clinks champagne glasses with Ms von Allwörden. “Now we have reached a situation where I cannot eat you, I much prefer that but I can lick you much better now,” he says.
Mr Diener then proceeds to rub his wolf costume’s snout on Ms von Allwörden’s neck.
“Yes,” adds Ms von Allwörden, “and I don’t have to be scared anymore when I want to visit my grandmother in the big, dark forest.”
The video has prompted mass bafflement and disdain in German media, with the Tag24 website branding it “pure shame”. Bild newspaper described the clip as “grotesque and embarrassing”.
According to Bild, wolf culling is a long-running campaign issue for Mr Diener who has previously dressed up in the costume to aid his efforts to reform local hunting laws.
A spokesman for the agriculture ministry told Focus, German news site, that the new reform did not affect wolves’ protected status in Europe and only applied to areas where there has been an increase in wolf attacks on grazing livestock.
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