Say no to protectionism — and let’s get down to business with Claudia Schiffer

The World Cup is not really my bag, but already it’s done its bit to pep up my GWB (that’s ‘general wellbeing’, for those not yet fluent in Cameron-speak). Eleven giant posters have been plastered around Bank station featuring Claudia Schiffer draped in a German flag. They’re part of a campaign to encourage investment in Germany and feature saucy slogans such as ‘Want to get down to business?’ and ‘Come over to my place’.

Schiffer is an ideal ambassador for Germany. With her hairless armpits and winning smile, the supermodel is a world away from those moustachioed shot-putters who used to fly the flag for German womanhood. In fact, the campaign is such a good idea we should do something similar here. But who would represent Britain? Until recently, the job was Kate Moss’s for the taking. But reports of her drug-fuelled lifestyle rule her out. Elizabeth Hurley is probably too old, Keira Knightley too young and Margaret Beckett wouldn’t look good in a Union Jack. So who? The answer, I realise, is literally staring me in the face. Claudia Schiffer may be German, but why should that bother a country that is happy to let Sven coach its football team and accepts foreigners at the helm of almost a third of the FTSE 100? Schiffer speaks English, has an English husband and owns a home here. ‘Come over to my place’? Yes please, Claudia. Isn’t that in Notting Hill?

I don’t know anything about the European People’s Party. Perhaps, like the Queen of Hearts, it expects you to believe six impossible things every day before breakfast, in which case David Cameron is right to insist on taking his Conservative MEPs out of it. But I do know that, as far as the City and business is concerned, Europe is at a critical juncture and it would be interesting to know where Cameron stands.