Spanish PM’s daughters ‘come out’ as Goths

Hola Goth, Zapman! This is the picture that has got the Spaniards in a tizzy after it was uploaded onto the US State Department Flickr stream. It shows the Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and wife visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with the Obamas last week - and taking along their two daughters Laura and Alba. Who, all of Spain now knows, appear to be a couple of serious Goths.

The story goes that the two girls - Laura is 16 and Alba 13 - have never been seen before by the general Spanish public because of the strict privacy laws operating in Spain. Now their cover has been blown by the Obama administration's policy of putting all official photos of visiting dignitaries on the State Department Flickr site.

After a request from the Spanish government, the White House had the photograph removed - but it was too late. Spanish email in-boxes have been inundated with photographs of the Addams Family, KISS and Tolkien's Orcs, all suitably Photoshopped.

Zapatero was in Brighton yesterday for the Labour party conference. It is not certain whether he brought his family with him, but if anyone saw two women dressed head to toe in black, scurrying along the sea front, it wasn't Harriet Harman and Tessa Jowell - it was the Zapatero girls. ·