"The French Were Not Amused"

I'm glad European politics is more serious than American politics:

David Cameron is caught up in an extraordinary 'dwarfgate' row with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The dispute centres on a claim that Mr Cameron made a remark about 'hidden dwarfs' while discussing a photograph showing himself with Mr Sarkozy - who is seven inches shorter than the Tory leader.

...And Shadow Chancellor George Osborne allegedly fuelled the Franco-Tory war by describing a box placed beneath a speaker's lectern as a 'Sarkozy box', before bursting into a fit of giggles.

...The Tories last night dismissed the dwarfgate report as 'nonsense' and claimed it was a 'Labour Party plant'. A senior Conservative source claimed that Gordon Brown was angry that Mr Sarkozy had agreed to meet Mr Cameron - and had even tried to stop the meeting taking place.

...The dwarfgate row erupted when Mr Cameron gave a newspaper interview in his Commons office, in which he appeared to mock Mr Sarkozy.

An article described framed photographs on Mr Cameron's desk, two featuring him with Barack Obama and several with Baroness Thatcher. It continued: '...and one with Nicolas Sarkozy that prompts a joke about "hidden dwarfs".'

It went on to state that Mr Cameron boasted how he liked a photograph of himself with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, 'because I'm taller than the Terminator'.

It is not clear what was meant by 'hidden dwarfs', though the implication is that the phrase was uttered by Mr Cameron and aimed at Mr Sarkozy. The French were not amused.