Skip to main content

Liberalism resurgent (in Germany)

As I predicted some time ago, the Free Democrats: the German Liberal Party, has seen a dramatic increase in its vote at the Federal elections. It has been dramatic progress, a nearly a third increase in the FDP vote, to give them 15% and the near certainty of forming a coalition with the Conservative CDU/CSU, under the Chancellorship of Angela Merkel.

The previous "Grand coalition" of the CDU/CSU with the Social Democrats can now be replaced with a far more radical free market led government. Profound congratulations to Guy Westerwelle and all of the FDP team.

The pan European trend of the slow decay of Socialism is, yet again, mirrored in this result from Berlin. Nevertheless it is not the Conservatives that are mere beneficiaries of the swing of the pendulum. The election result confirms the continuing demand for greater political choice. The combined vote of the FDP, the Greens and the Left party is greater than either the SPD or the CDU/CSU.

This latest election result in Europe shows that voters are increasingly rejecting the old left/right choices and are seeking a more diverse set of ideas.

That should give politicians across the political spectrum some pause for thought. As the polls for the Liberal Democrats in the UK now begin to match or better the result they gained in 2005, I suspect that it is not just in Germany that we may see a greater political pluralism- even if our 19th Century political system is ill equipped to cope with it.
Labels:

Comments

Newmania said…
Yes we have so much to learn about democracy from the Germans .
11:49 am
Cicero said…
Since the Germans know what happens when democracy is destroyed, I would say that they probably do have things to teach us. Fifty years after the creation of the Federal Republic and twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, German democracy has not seen fascist MEPs elected to the European Parliament, whereas- to our shame- the UK has elected 2 BNP Fascists.
3:45 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop
Post a Comment
Read more

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo
Post a Comment
Read more

KamiKwasi brings an end to the illusion of Tory economic competence

After a long time, Politics seems to be getting interesting again, so I thought it might be time to restart my blog. With regard to this weeks mini budget, as with all budgets, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great de
Post a Comment
Read more