Angela merkel

Hulking fat chavs pushing shopping trolleys full of lavatory paper back to their Nissan Micras. I can’t think of a better image to sum up the coronavirus crisis right now. I saw a bunch of them outside my local branch of Morrisons on Sunday morning, their expressions uniformly defiant and smug. One family had at least ten multipacks in their trolley — and nothing else. Surely one cannot live on toilet tissue alone, no matter how agreeably scented it might be? I assumed they were part of the panic-buying crowd, although having seen the size of their arses it may well be that this was simply their requisite amount for

Home Austerity was ‘finally coming to an end’, Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in the Budget. He was helped by what he did not call a magic money sapling, in the form of revised estimates of public borrowing in 2018, £11.6 billion lower than forecast. Debt as a share of GDP, from a peak of 85.2 per cent in 2016-17, would still be 74.1 per cent by 2024. Mr Hammond repeated a pledge of an extra £20.5 billion for the NHS over the next five years, with an extra £2 billion a year for mental health services. Councils would get £700 million more for care. The personal

Things I learned about the Germans after a fortnight living as a non–tourist in Frankfurt:   1. Germans, and Germany generally, are among the world’s most underrated things. True they are not so adept at wit, snark, banter, jocularity or general frivolity. But they are kind, welcoming, generous and unlike, say, the French, charmingly grateful when you attempt to speak their quaint, guttural, impossibly inflected language even though — stimmt! — they speak yours so much better.   2. Here’s what happened when I lost my wallet. I got back to my hotel — cursing each step of the way the hours I would have to spend cancelling and re-ordering

As anti-migrant sentiment sweeps across Europe, is the continent turning against Angela Merkel for her open-door policy, and is this the end of Merkel? Meanwhile, Donald Trump announced his new mission – to establish a sixth branch of the US military, the Space Force. Is this such a bad idea? And last, while it may be greedy and corrupt, should Fifa be celebrated for making the World Cup truly global? Angela Merkel is struggling. On the continent, anti-migrant sentiment is being whipped up by leaders like Austria’s Sebastian Kurz and Italy’s Matteo Salvini. At home, her re-election results were less than ideal and her coalition partner has pushed for a

Home Crisis loomed over Brexit negotiations as Theresa May, the Prime Minister, travelled to the north-east to explain ‘this Government’s vision of what our future economic partnership with the European Union should look like’. Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, had announced that its Brexit policy was now ‘to negotiate a new comprehensive UK-EU customs union’ that would still (somehow) ‘ensure the UK has a say in future trade deals’. Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit spokesman, had said earlier that the party would back an amendment to the Government’s delayed Trade Bill hatched by the Conservative Remainer Anna Soubry, to keep Britain in a customs union. The European

On this week’s episode, we look at Germany’s political nightmare, speak to one of the world’s most eminent psychologists, and get excited by the Winter Olympics. First up, since last year’s election, Angela Merkel’s chancellorship has seemed to be on thin ice. Her party, the Christian Democrats, have a coalition offer pending with the SPD, which would, at best, see the far right AfD become the main opposition. What is fuelling this unrest? And how long can Merkel continue in the current climate? Thomas Kielinger writes on the future of Germany’s leadership in the magazine and he joins the podcast along with Anne McElvoy, head of Economist Radio. As Thomas