Scrapbook for February

26.02.2025 – Putting rubber on the road

Well, that didn't last long. The screeching U-turn on the hot-button election topic of immigration came scarcely two days after the results were in. The previous government (red-black-green-yellow) had been flying in Afghan 'refugees' by the plane load. In the weeks before the election these flights had been suspended. Chancellor-to-be Merz muttered a few vague phrases about the new regime's 'border checks'.

Now the flights have restarted, with 155 Afghans arriving in Berlin on Tuesday 25th February, to add to the 48'000 Afghans already in Germany since August 2021. No need to travel across long and precarious land routes, no dangerous boating over seas – direct flight point to point. After the tough talk running up to the election, Merz is now stating 'no one wants to close the borders'.

Not really a surprise, since he needs the SPD as his coalition partner and they (and half of his own party) will insist on open borders.

Bad enough. But even worse when one considers how many Afghans have been involved in murderous, psychotic attacks on innocents in recent months. In Germany, you vote right-wing, you get left wing and nothing ever changes.

24.02.2025 – Germany: Same procedure, Miss Sophie?*

With each new election in Germany comes another validation of our First Rule of German Politics: Nothing ever changes.

It was the AfD's night (20.8% votes/152 seats) –but it made no difference: the Wessies clung to their comfort blanket of the CDU/CSU (28.5%/208); gave the SPD a bit of a slapping (16.4%/120), mainly, it seems, for the disastrous performance in office of its unprepossessing Chancellor, Olaf Scholz; the Greens lost a bit but came in with 11.65%/85; the Linke, the nostalgics for the good old days of the DDR, got in with 8.8%/64; at the time of writing the neo-commies, BSW, seem to have squeaked in (5.0%/1).

It looks as though Chancellor-to-be Merz can form a coalition with the SPD to produce a slim majority in parliament. He has ruled out a coalition with the AfD in line with his Brandmauer tactic, thus producing what used to be called, when German politics still half-worked, a 'Grand Coalition'. Let's see how many of his crypto-AfD policies survive this 'Feeble Coalition', especially since quite a few of his party colleagues these days could happily fit into the SPD. The bottom line is that a majority voted for a conservative government (CDU/CSU/AfD), but have ended up with the usual left of centre mush that has served them so badly. That's what Brandmauers do. More ruin is therefore on the way.

And what about the enemy within, the Greens? They lost some votes this time round but are still a force to be reckoned with (11.6%/85). It seems unlikely that a Merz coalition with the SPD, with its slim majority in parliament, will be able to significantly change the Green measures that have done so much damage to Germany.

And finally, two charts that should, by rights, give Germans something to think about:

* Update
The presence here of a certain Miss Sophie baffled some readers. It is an allusion to the 18 minute sketch Dinner for One (1963), a scratchy, black and white film which is broadcast every New Year's Eve on German television. In the sketch, Miss Sophie (May Warden, 1891-1978) is celebrating her 90th birthday with a dinner party, served by her faithful butler James (Freddie Frinton, 1909-1968). All of the four regular guests are dead, so James has to impersonate them in their toasts to Miss Sophie at the beginning of each of the four courses, always introduced by James' question to Miss Sophie: 'The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?' to which she always responds: 'The same procedure as every year, James'. After downing 16 toasts, James is decidedly under the weather.
Frinton made his comedy career playing drunks (although he himself was a lifelong teetotaller). I saw several of his routines. Frinton inserted into Dinner for One a snatch from the 1957 song Sugartime ('Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening…') which had become his signature tune in his stage show.

23.02.2025 – Germany: One more time around the drain? Brief reflections on today's German election.

Recent polling has to be taken with several pinches of salt. Despite running a stellar campaign with a stellar candidate, in the last few weeks the AfD's polling has flatlined at just over 20 percent. As we saw recently in the US election, where 'too close to call' turned out to be an historic landslide, the AfD's flatline suggests someone has their thumb on the scale.

We have to ask whether there is any point in voters casting their votes for small parties such as BSW, the Left, the Greens or the Liberals. If we believe the polls, most of these will not be able to jump over the 5 percent hurdle to gain a place in parliament. This election is essentially between the CDU/CSU and the AfD, with a discredited SPD and its lacklustre candidate Olaf Scholz following far behind.

In the worst of all worlds, if Friedrich Merz of the CDU insists on perpetuating the infamous Brandmauer against the AfD, Germany could end up with a coalition of the CDU/CSU and the SPD with whatever small, nutcase-left parties managed to limp over the 5 percent hurdle. This coalition will drag on for a while before it collapses under the weight of its own innate differences.

As Elon Musk recently noted, no party apart from the AfD is proposing any programme that in any way addresses the issues facing Germany. However vigorously you shake the coalition cocktail, the martini that comes out will be missing the gin.

This will mean more years of dither and inaction for the German state. In this situation the AfD will just have to bide its time until that moment comes. If this time they happen to get more than 25 percent of the seats in parliament, they will be able to be a proper and effective opposition and Merz's Brandmauer will be an embarrassment.

Admittedly, Merz has never been known to insist on anything for longer than a day before changing his mind. It doesn't matter: no German voter has any idea of what the results of their vote will be, or what policies the new government will implement – or not, as the case may be.

The result of the election will almost certainly show once again that German reunification has not succeeded. An optimist might say 'is still work in progress'. The former East German states will have a substantial turnout for the AfD; the former West German states will hug their CDU/CSU/SPD comfort blankets, pretend Helmut Schmidt is still in charge and hope that it all comes out right in the end.

Effectively (once again) stitched up and disenfranchised, the former Ossies might say they can do much better for themselves on their own; the Wessies can continue down the slope leading to the obliteration of Germany. Then the Brandmauer can become a real Mauer 2.0 to keep the Wessie hordes out, fleeing oppression and just wanting a better life.

You laugh? But think on: if, 25 years ago, I had written that the oh-so-serious, oh-so-dependable Germany would be by 2025 a political, cultural and economic basket case under the jackboot of an increasingly repressive political and judicial class, who would have believed me? 'There is a lot of ruin in a country' (©Adam Smith), and the Wessies are close to using it up.

If the result of this election is just a reheated left-left-left-green coalition (justifying once again our motto that in German politics, nothing ever changes) the country will be closer to ruin than you can imagine.

19.02.2025 – No peace like a Swiss peace

Last June we brought you news of the Ukraine peace conference that was held at the very amenable Bürgenstock Resort above Lake Lucerne.

Swiss gastronomy, saunas, spas and whirlpools – what's not to like? Just no peace from the five-star pampering.

We stated at the time without fear of contradiction that the conference would achieve nothing (apart from splattering a large amount of Swiss money to the four winds).

The nothingness of the nothing that it did achieve has now been brought into focus by President Trump's initiative to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The refreshing energy and conviction of Trump's initiative, free of all diplomatic niceties and nuance is striking:

I want to see peace. Look, you know why I want it? Because I don't want all these people killed anymore. I'm looking at people that are being killed — and they're Russian and Ukrainian people, but they're people.

Press Q and A in Mar-a-Lago, 18.02.2025.

Amen to that, say we.

Trump's decisive intervention has firstly tarnished the reputation of the Swiss as neutral peacemakers – Saudi Arabia is now the hot new spot for peacemaking and, secondly, made the Swiss foreign affairs staff under Bundesrat Cassis, currently being hounded in the Swiss media, look like gormless plonkers.

We cynical observers note that Saudi Arabia neither took sides in the conflict nor supplied arms to keep the meat grinder going.

Switzerland, supposedly neutral, not only got mixed up in the war, discussed supplying weapons for it in devious ways but also enthusiastically enforced the EU's sanctions regime against Russia.

19.02.2025 – The Zeitgeist brings a new Zeitenwende in Germany – might something change at last in German politics?

Among the many signs that Elon and JD's steady support for the AfD in Germany has changed the political climate is the fact that commentators such as Katja Hoyer, the one-time Ossie who is now a Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and who puts herself about a lot in the English-speaking media, have suddenly stopped prefixing every mention of the AfD with 'far-right', demagoguery that should really disqualify them as unbiased observers.

Even the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that bastion of the German Establishment, noted that, after the TV debate between leaders of the four main parties, the AfD leader Alice Weidel's performance – calm, unfazed, actually answering questions – had completed the media 'normalisation' of the AfD [Zumindest medial ist damit die Normalisierung der AfD abgeschlossen].

A tacit acceptance also that, for the last ten years, the traditional German parties and establishment media had done everything they could to de-normalise the newcomer among them – 'far-right' being one of the milder defamations.

Certainly feels like a Zeitenwende is upon us, perhaps even a Zeitgeist has arisen to fan the wind of change. Will anything really change? Who knows? Tricky things, coalitions.

08.02.2025 – Menuhin Academy Masterclasses 2025

Something for talented performers on the violin, viola or cello, just sent to me by the Menuhin Academy. A week at the Institut Le Rosey campus in Rolle, Canton Vaud, Switzerland for 700 CHF. The top talents will be chosen for the Academy's three-year program. Details on the website. Applications close 16.02.2025.