CALL them Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's babies. Most are
newcomers to the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's
parliament. Some, like Carsten Schneider, at 23 the youngest
member of the 669-seat legislature, are from the ex-communist
East. All belong to the Social Democratic Party, which Mr
Schröder has led only since April, after the abrupt resignation
of his predecessor and finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine. And,
to put it plainly, they are fed up.  In a six-page manifesto, 13
of these young Turks have let off steam. They claim that, for a
biggish chunk of the party establishment, “ideological navel-
contemplation” has become the main stuff of politics. Down, they
cry, with turgid argument about what is “left” and what is
“right”. Up with pragmatic reform: among other ideas, they want
to cut state debt, rejig archaic professional training, chop the
all-but-interminable time German students can spend at
university, trim the bureaucracy and encourage self-reliance.
Worthy stuff in its way, though not, on