Who would want to be mayor of Berlin? Sure, there are worse jobs. Salesman in one of the sex video shops on Adenauerplatz, perhaps. Night manager of a Tankstelle, making sure that no one steals a can of Red Bull. That kind of thing. But to be mayor of Berlin is to live a lie: you have to pretend that this strange fractured city is still governable. You have to act as if your decisions make a difference when actually the actions of theSenat are increasingly irrelevant to everyday life in Berlin.

And now the formidable Renate Künast – who has always reminded me of Tim, of Tim and Struppi fame – has declared herself a candidate for the job. Like Tim, the roving reporter, she is constantly on the move in search of adventure, solving mysteries, unmasking bad men. And just as we never see the cartoon journalist actually writing a story, so we rarely see Ms Künast actually making decisions. So it could be that she is just about perfect for the Berlin job.

The Greens are astonishingly popular at the moment because they are deemed to be in accord with the Zeitgeist;  there is a deep suspicion about insensitive political decision-making,  the inability of politicians to address popular fears and resentment. We need  to find new ways of conducting a political conversation: that is obviously what Stuttgart 21 demonstrates. The protestors there, and in the Wendland last weekend, were overwhelmingly bürgerlich – doctors and teachers in Timberland boots – and angry that politicians did not seem to be treating them seriously. Increasingly Berliners feel the same about Klaus Wowereit : that he has stopped listening. The Greens, on the other hand, have created a whole culture of political debate. They remain the party of Sprachtherapie.

But when it comes down to governing rather than consulting, Greens too often resort to pressure, to Zwang. The classic example is the Marburg solare Baupflicht: the ruling that all home owners have to heat their water with sun energy when they renovate their houses.From the English point of view,  an extraordinary infringement of property rights.The Green Parteitag later this month will set national targets – complete Ökostrom Versorgung by 2030; Ölheizungen out of houses by 2015 – that can only be realised by compulsory measures. That, then, is the paradox of Green power. On the one hand it promises a consultative democracy; on the other hand it denies choice for those people who do not want, or cannot afford, to conform with a politically correct approach to containing climate change.

So, if Renate Künast becomes Regierende Bürgermeisterin, will she act as an Ökodictator, a kind of Green Imelda Marcos? The truth is that the most successful Green mayors – in Tübingen and Freiburg – have been directly elected and enjoy popular support, a licence to experiment. Künast does not have this luxury and Grün –Rot would be radically different from Grün-Schwarz. The only certainty is that Green city management functions best in rich communities, in clean and tidy Schwabendland. There, they argue about the … hazards of Laubbläser. Here we are knee deep in  dog faeces, much of it hidden by leaves.

There is a difference then between Green governemt in the south west of the country and in this proletarian Hauptstadt. What seems like Ökodiktatur in Marburg may be the only way to change behaviour in Berlin. A Mayor Künast would impose a general 30 kilometre limit on Berlin with the exception of the main roads. Is that dictatorial? Many taxi-drivers will say so. But slower traffic and parking meters in the centre of town –will make Berliners think twice about using cars. Frustrated Berlin motorists will shift  to the S-Bahn. I find that OK. Even an increase in Fahradwege, as planned by Künast is acceptable providing she doesn’t actually order me to get on a bike. But naturally such a policy has to be supported by more investment in public transport. Wowereit once declared the S-Bahn to be “Chefsache.” Nothing much came out of that partly because he had not developed a proper urban mobility strategy- but also because there is no money to invest.

Here then we come to the hub of the problem of the Künast –candidacy. I don’t mind a woman giving me orders; we all have to get used to that. But she has to prove that Green plans can be achieved with less, not more bureaucracy. And that she has the financial competence to juggle priorities, freeing up money for some new urban investment, while at the same time making intelligent cuts to reduce Berlin’s ridiculous levels of debt. Is she capable of doing that? I don’t yet see the evidence.

Despite her image in the Boulevard press, Künast is not a revolutionary. Prince Charles once declared Renate Künast to be his favourite German politician – I suppose he  likes her plan to have more Wildnissflächen in Berlin’s parks – so we may yet see a special Anglo-German axis develop. A bio-King Charles and a Grün-schwarz RB Künast exchanging tips about the post-industrial future? It could happen. But for the Öko-Charles to be credible he will have to give up some of his expensive palaces and cut back his air miles. And the Bürgermeisterin Künast will have to find the money to turn Berlin’s Hundekacke into bio-energy. Nothing less will convince Berliners that their city is ready for a green revolution

Wer möchte schon gern Regierender Bürgermeister von Berlin sein? Klar, es gibt schlimmere Jobs. Verkäufer in einem der Sexläden am Adenauerplatz zu sein oder Nachtschicht auf einer Tankstelle zu haben und darauf achten zu müssen, dass niemand eine Dose Red Bull klaut. Aber als Berlins Bürgermeister muss man eine Lüge leben: Man muss so tun, als ob diese merkwürdig fragmentierte Stadt überhaupt noch regierbar wäre.

Und nun steigt die eindrucksvolle Renate Künast – die mich immer an Tim aus „Tim und Struppi“ erinnert – in den Ring. Wie Tim, der rasende Reporter, ist sie unablässig auf der Suche nach Abenteuern, deckt Geheimnisse auf, entlarvt böse Männer. Und wie der Comic-Journalist niemals beim Verfassen einer Reportage zu sehen ist, erwischen wir Künast selten dabei, wie sie eine Entscheidung trifft. Sie ist also perfekt für den Job.

Die Grünen sind derzeit bemerkenswert populär, weil sie als Verkörperung des Zeitgeistes wahrgenommen werden. Es herrscht ein tiefes Misstrauen gegenüber einem unsensiblen politischen Entscheidungsprozess; Politiker werden als unfähig wahrgenommen, die Ängste und Sorgen der Bevölkerung zu verstehen. Wir brauchen einen neuen politischen Diskurs: Das ist offenbar die Lehre aus Stuttgart 21. Die Demonstranten dort und im Wendland sind überwiegend bürgerlich und wütend darüber, dass die Politiker sie nicht ernst zu nehmen scheinen. Das ist ein Gefühl, das die Berliner mehr und mehr auch bei Klaus Wowereit haben: Er hat aufgehört zuzuhören. Die Grünen haben dagegen eine ganz neue Debattenkultur ins Leben gerufen. Sie sind noch immer die Partei der Sprachtherapie. Aber wenn es darum geht, zu regieren statt nur guten Rat zu liefern, fallen die Grünen allzu oft auf das Mittel des Zwangs zurück. Klassisches Beispiel ist die solare Baupflicht in Marburg: die Entscheidung, dass alle Hausbesitzer ihr Wasser mit Sonnenenergie erwärmen müssen, wenn sie das Haus renovieren. Aus englischer Sicht ein außergewöhnlicher Eingriff ins Eigentumsrecht. Und darin besteht der Widerspruch der Macht der Grünen: Einerseits versprechen sie eine Demokratie der Mitbeteiligung; andererseits bieten sie all jenen, die sich die politisch korrekte Reaktion auf den Klimawandel nicht zu eigen machen wollen oder sie sich nicht leisten können, nichts an.

Wird sich die Regierende Bürgermeisterin Künast als Öko-Diktatorin aufspielen, als eine grüne Imelda Marcos? Die erfolgreichsten grünen Bürgermeister – in Tübingen und Freiburg – sind direkt gewählt worden und haben eine Mehrheit hinter sich. Künast hätte diesen Luxus nicht, und Grün-Rot wäre eine fundamental andere Konstellation als Grün-Schwarz. Sicher ist nur, dass grüne Stadtregierungen in reichen Gemeinden am besten funktionieren, im sauberen, reichen Schwabenland. Dort streiten sie über die Gefahren der Laubbläser, hier stehen wir knietief in Hundescheiße. Was in Marburg wie ein Öko-Diktatur erscheint, mag in Berlin jedoch der einzige Weg sein, Veränderung zu erreichen. Bürgermeisterin Künast setzt ein allgemeines Tempo 30 für die Stadt durch – diktatorisch? Aus Sicht vieler Taxifahrer vielleicht. Aber bei schleppendem Verkehr in der Innenstadt und hohen Parkgebühren denken die Menschen vielleicht endlich darüber nach, ihr Auto stehen zu lassen und die S-Bahn zu benutzen. Also völlig richtig. Auch Künasts Plan, mehr Fahrradwege zu schaffen, ist gut, solange ich nicht selbst aufs Fahrrad muss. Eine solche Politik muss aber mit Investitionen in den öffentlichen Nahverkehr Hand in Hand gehen. Wowereit hatte einst die S-Bahn zur Chefsache erklärt.

Ich habe nichts dagegen, von einer Frau gesagt zu bekommen, was ich tun soll; daran müssen wir uns alle gewöhnen. Aber Künast muss beweisen, dass grüne Pläne mit weniger Bürokratie umgesetzt werden können. Und dass sie den ökonomischen Verstand besitzt, Prioritäten zu setzen und Geld frei zu machen für Investitionen – und gleichzeitig zu sparen. Kann sie das? Mir fehlt das Beweismaterial.

Trotz ihres Images in der Boulevardpresse ist Künast keine Revolutionärin. Prinz Charles ernannte sie einst zu seiner Lieblingspolitikerin in Deutschland – vermutlich, weil sie mehr Wildnisflächen in Berlin schaffen will. Die neue anglodeutsche Achse: ein Bio-König und eine Bio-Königin tauschen sich über die postindustrialisierte Zukunft aus. Gut möglich. Aber um glaubwürdig zu bleiben, muss Öko-Charles auf einige teure Paläste verzichten. Und Bürgermeisterin Künast muss einen Weg finden, aus Berlins Hundekot Bio-Energie zu gewinnen. Nichts weniger wird die Berliner davon überzeugen, dass ihre Stadt für eine grüne Revolution bereits ist.

Aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Moritz Schuller.

It happens to all of us, doesn’t it? You get out of the bath  – in my case after playing with red plastic ducks – and you feel dizzy. Perfectly natural: hot water, cold air,  Kreislauf, blabla. But here’s another possibility – your bath salts, called perhaps “Bonsai Citrons” or “Forest Green”, contained artificial marijuana mixed with herbs. According to a drug expert from the LKA Niedersachsen, the ingredients are being ordered in China and mixed in Germany, then bottled up with names like “Charge Plus, König unter den Badesalzen.” You lie back in the bath, breathe in the steam and get high.

Personally, I prefer Badedas.

These new Cannabinoide are illegal but it is almost impossible to do anything about them. They exist solely because of the restrictions on the sale and distribution of marijuana. If the government declared marijuana to be a legal substance, all this Teufelszeug in the bathroom would disappear quicker than you can pull a plug.

It really is time to liberalise the use of soft drugs. The theory that smoking marijuana leads automatically to hard drug abuse has never been proved and is even less credible now than it was in the 1970s. Anyone still wedded to the the argument that governments have more important things to do than hand out drugs to young people, should keep an eye on the financial genius George Soros. Next Tuesday, Californians will  vote on a new law which will allow adults over the age of 21 to grow and posses marijuana and allow state and local government to collect tax on drug sales. Mr. Soros has donated $ 1 million to the liberalisation campaign. The so-called “War on Drugs”, he says, has been a costly failure. He argues that by freeing up drug policies you save taxpayers billions of dollars in police investigations, court trials and imprisonment. At the same time the government would raise billions of dollars in tax revenue. And at least some of the crime and corruption in the drug business would be reduced. You could buy your marijuana in the Apotheke.

Marijuana – which has positive medical effects for some illnesses – should move more quickly out of the grey market in to the open. The gradual criminalisation of the tobacco smoker could thus be counter-pointed by the increasing social acceptability and legality of kiffen.  Naturally it has to operate within a system of rules – doctors should not smoke it before an operation, judges should try not to take a puff  before entering the courtroom – but I do think the time has come to drop the antiquated anti-cannabis  legislation. It is less harmful to society than nicotine, child pornography internet sites, the steroids swallowed in almost every one of Berlin’s body-building gym.

The debate is being stoked internationally (and will reach Germany with the usual three month delay) by the memoirs of Keith Richard, the lead guitarist of the Rolling Stones. He is now aged 67 and has a face like cracked concrete. But against all expectations, after a wild life, his mind still seems to be  clear. The book (“Life”) has already been translated into German. The reviews, even in the more serious newspapers have concentrated on his rivalry with Mick Jagger (including comments on the size of  one of his body organs), The real narrative however is not so much about the excesses of the 1960s as  about that era’s quest for self-discovery, about determining ones own limits in a world where authority was  breaking down. The drug experimentation was part of that but exaggerated by the press and demonised by the political class which realised it was losing control. The Times, in 1967 a far more conservative newspaper than it is today, criticised jail sentences handed down to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger after a drug raid. Richards was sentenced to a year in jail for allowing his house to be used for smoking cannabis, Jagger was jailed for having four amphetamine tablets in his pocket. The Times wrote an editorial headlined “Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?”, telling the courts to chase real criminals and stop hounding the young.. The sentences were squashed. When the police stormed the house, they found Marianne Faithful, Mick Jaggers girlfriend (and occasionally Keith Richards’) wrapped in nothing but a fur rug. Was this normal behaviour? asked the prosecutorin the courtroom. Richards replied: “We are not old men. We are not worried about petty morals. “

From that moment on I became a fan of Keith Richards (and a Times reader). One of the great civilisational fault-lines is, of course, whether one is a Stones fan or a Beatles fan. The Stones, it seemed to my camp, were proto- revolutionaries, and the Beatles were just bieder. The Beatles were given medals by the Queen. Drummer Ringo Star went on to be the voice of the children’s’ cartoon series Thomas the Tank Engine.  Paul MacCartney went on to dye his hair and marry a one-legged money-grabbing mythomaniac. The Beatles wanted to hold your hand: the Stones intended to blow up your father’s house. The Beatles smoked marijuana because they believed it would lead to Nirvana; the Stones used it, more sensibly, as a muscle relaxant while they planned their personal revolution.

If the government is to be persuaded to follow the Soros route and liberalise the use of Cannabis, then we have to work out who in the cabinet is  or was a Beatles fan and who was a Stone. Only a Stones majority will generate a change in the drug laws. This work of political analyses proved to be more difficult a task than I imagined.  I had of course followed the Alan Posener online debate Beatles v Stones earlier this year. And studied the definitive text “John Lannons Tod und die Generationswerdung der 68er in “Politik und Zeitgeschichte”( 47 footnotes, quoting everybody from Adorno to Hans-Olaf Henkel). But I did not get any closer to discovering the secret Stones admirers inn the government. So this week I took an  advisor from the neutral Greens (a party of Kinks fans pretending to be Velvet Underground sympathisers) and she quickly pointed out  the problem. “People make this distinction between Beatles and Stones because they are basically saying that  if you like the Beatles you are uncool. But the Stones had an uncool singer – the control freak Jagger – a cool guitarist, Keith, and a really stupid drummer.”

“All drummers are stupid,” I told her, “they don’t count.”

But eventually we agreed on the selection criteria, basing it partly on past interviews and press reports, partly on instinct.

Here goes:

Merkel: Beatles (Klar: FDJ secret listening)

Westerwelle: Beatles (”Charts und Klassik, Oper und Pop” it says on his Facebook profil

Schaueble: Stones (because of Jagger – former student at London School of Economics)

von der Leyen: Beatles.

zu Guttenberg:  Stones( despite hair gel, and despite pseudo-allegiance to AC/DC)

Niebel: Stones

Brüderle: Stones ( “the economy rocks!)

De Maziere: Beatles (bevorzugt Leute mit ordentlichem Haarschnitt)

Ramsauer: Beatles (plays „Yesterday“ on piano)

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger Stones(the only cabinet minister to admit this openly)

Aigner: Beatles

Rösler: Beatles (”Will you still need me, will you still love me when I’m 64?”

Röttgen:  Stones ( in particular, “Sympathy with the Devil”)

Schavan: Beatles

Pofalla : Beatles

Seehofer is obviously a Stones fan( uneheliches Kind, ist doch klar), but is sadly not a member of the cabinet.

So we calculate a narrow majority against liberalising the drug laws. Time, perhaps, to start thinking about a Jamaica coalition?