Angela merkel

Donald Trump has been dogged by Nazi associations, whether it’s his reluctance to condemn David Duke during the campaign — after temporising, he finally said ‘I disavow,’ though what, exactly, he was disavowing he left unclear — or the Charlottesville rally, which he said in August 2017 had ‘some very fine people on both sides.’ Now comes Germany’s popular tabloid Bild newspaper to sound out Hitler’s surviving great-nephews — Brian, Louis, and Alexander Stuart-Houston — about their views of Trump. They represent the last paternal bloodline of the family and live on Long Island. Their father William Patrick was born in 1911 in Liverpool, the descendant of Alois Hitler, a half-brother of the Führer.

There was a time not too long ago - less than three years to be exact - when German Chancellor Angela Merkel was at the very top of her game. She dominated German and European politics for over a decade with her clear, effective, but cautious leadership, watching as the German economy solidified its place as Europe’s economic engine. When Merkel decided to open Germany’s doors in August 2015 to hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war and persecution in Syria, she became much more than the steward of Berlin’s economic power - she transformed overnight into the moral beacon of the European continent.

Why do the British turn to the Germans in their moments of European trouble? It never works. When Jacques Delors conceived his single currency plans, Mrs Thatcher over-relied on Karl Otto Pöhl at the Bundesbank to squash them. Dr Pöhl preferred to side with Helmut Kohl. When Britain was struggling to stay in the ERM in the late summer of 1992, the Major government put faith in what they thought were German promises to help them out. These failed to materialise. When David Cameron sought a new EU deal which would win him the 2016 referendum, he placed his greatest hopes in Angela Merkel, who offered him concessions so feeble that even he quickly gave up trying to sell them. Last week, Mrs May flew to Berlin.

How did she do it? How has Angela Merkel hung on for a fourth term as German Chancellor after being written off so many times? When she's sworn in as Bundeskanzlerin today it'll be nearly thirteen years since she became leader of the Bundesrepublik. She's been read the last rites so often, yet after almost six months of backroom talks she's back in office. But is she really back in power? Merkel has promised Germany 'a grand coalition for the little people.' It's a catchy catchphrase but can she deliver? Yet another cosy alliance between her centre right CDU and the soft left SPD hardly feels like a new beginning for the millions of voters who deserted the two big parties at last September's election.

There’s no success like failure, as Bob Dylan once observed. Nearly six months after Germans went to the polls and gave the country’s coalition government a bloody nose, the same two parties are back in government in another ‘grand coalition’ – yet another unholy alliance of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, with Angela Merkel at the helm again. Haven’t we been here several times before? Well, yes and no. Merkel’s centre-right CDU agreed a coalition deal with the soft-left SPD last month, but SPD protocol demanded they put this deal to their 464,000 members, and after an all-night count the result of that postal vote was announced this morning.

Here we go again. More than four months after Germans went to the polls and gave both main parties the thumbs down, Germany’s Christian Democrats and Social Democrats have finally agreed the terms of yet another Grand Coalition. True, the CDU and the SPD are still Germany’s two biggest parties. Between them they still command (just) over 50 percent of the national vote. But it’s a bitter irony that these two centrist parties are back in power together, after both recorded their worst election results since the war. Barring a catastrophe or a miracle (depending on your point of view) Angela Merkel will be Chancellor again, for a fourth term, but her centre-right CDU has made some big concessions. The SPD has retained control of the Foreign Affairs and Labour Ministries.

Theresa May's not having a good few weeks. With Tories scrambling to either criticise their leader or covertly campaign to be the next leader, May's premiership appears to be on shaky ground once more. Add to this a backlash from Conservative Brexiteers and a government Brexit forecast leak and it's safe to conclude things aren't about to get better anytime soon. Now it seems she can't even rely on her European allies for support. ITV's Robert Peston reports that May was the punchline to a joke Angela Merkel told hacks at Davos. He says that the German chancellor had journalists in stitched when she told a story about May's negotiating position: 'Merkel said that when she asks Mrs May what she wants the shape of the UK's relationship with the EU to be, Mrs May says "make me an offer".

Oh dear. More than three months since Germans went to the polls, and gave the CDU-SPD government a bloody nose, its politicians have finally emerged from the latest coalition talks - and the result is yet another cosy alliance between the CDU and the SPD. You’ve got to feel for German voters. In the Fatherland it seems no matter who you vote for, the so-called ‘grand coalition’ of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats almost always wins. It wasn’t meant to be this way. In September’s election the CDU and SPD both recorded their worst result since the Second World War – 33 percent for the CDU (down nearly 9 percent) and 20.5 percent for the SPD (down by more than 5 percent).

Windsor Castle on Monday night sounds like a children’s party magnified. The rooms were filled with golden-leaved trees. A giant block of ice carved with the initials of the Queen on one side and the Duke of Edinburgh on the other dominated the reception room. Her sons wore their Windsor coats. A magician made a table levitate and move unsupported round the room. As with a children’s party, there were no speeches, and everyone was pleased and excited. After 70 years married, the two nonagenarians involved presumably felt, among family and friends, that they had earned the right to be unserious. The occasion must have been sweet for Prince Philip. All those years ago, he was patronised.

Angela Merkel’s declaration that new elections would be better than a minority government suggests Germany will be heading back to the polls soon. Though, it should be noted that the decision on whether to call fresh election is technically the German president’s, not Merkel’s. The so-called Jamaica coalition, bringing together Merkel’s CDU, the CSU, the Greens and the economically liberal Free Democrats, can’t be made to work as the collapse of the talks last night showed. The other alternative that would produce a majority government, another grand coalition between the CDU and the SPD, remains highly unlikely. The current consensus in the SPD is that the party needs a spell in opposition to recover; in September, it garnered only 20.