Chancellor's wife steps into air miles row

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s wife today waded into an MPs air miles row, accusing Germany’s most popular newspaper of targeting the government ahead of next month’s general election.

The flap, less than eight weeks before polling day, has resulted in the withdrawal from active politics of Germany’s best-known ex-communist and a prominent member of the Greens party, the junior partner in Schroeder’s governing coalition.