What was your reaction when you heard that there had been a series of organized mass sexual assaults across German cities? Sympathy for the victims? Anger at the perpetrators? Concern about the future? If so, you’re evidently not a German official.

Ralf Jaeger is the interior minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, where the worst attacks happened. He was in no doubt about what the real outrage was. Not the assaults and rapes, but the online comments by his political opponents.