Germany’s proportional election system (Mixed-member system), six parties represented in the Bundestag (CDU/CSU, SPD, AfD, FDP, Die Linke, Grüne) of which five could possibly participate in a government (only AfD would not), and no party likely to receive more than a third of the votes at the 26th September Bundestag […]
Early Saturday morning, 16th January 2021. Across Germany 1001 people look into their bathroom mirrors, wipe their eyes. And Armin Laschet stares back. And then, suitably refreshed, they each settle down in front of their laptops, and vote for Laschet as the new party leader of the CDU. Or, to […]
Anyone’s encountered one of my Brexit diagrams knows the score: I find the process of mapping out complicated political decisions as flow diagrams useful, in that it helps us better understand those processes. And Germany just now is confronted with a very complicated party political conundrum: who is going to […]
When I moved to Berlin in 2013 I needed to find a flat. I used a blog entry to help with my search, and wrote up my search experiences in the blog post “How To Find a Flat In Berlin” in January 2014. That post became one of the most […]
“Germany’s daily coronavirus cases nearly TRIPLE – states bring back tougher measures” screamed The Express last night. Even some normally level headed friends of mine had fallen for it and shared the piece on Facebook. As I have been in Berlin throughout the lockdown, and follow the news here pretty […]
This was my speech at the Grüne Bundesdelegiertenkongress yesterday in Leipzig. It was enough to get me more than 200 votes for position 14 on the list, and 299 votes for position 20. But not enough to get an electable position. Why? The structures of power in the party won […]
As explained in this blog post, I am seeking a place on the German Grüne European Parliament election list. The decision as to who makes it onto the list will be taken at a party conference on 10th November in Leipzig. This is my first campaign video, examining whether Germany […]
One of my nagging worries about political communication online, and through social media, is the inequality of it. We are still stuck with the idea that social media gives everyone a voice and, to an extent, that is true. But when everyone has a voice, how do you separate the […]
I’ve lived in Berlin since 26 October 2013. At that time I could not have known how the politics of the UK, the country in which I was born and whose passport I hold, would change. I moved to Germany for a combination of personal and professional reasons, and – […]
Last week’s printed edition of Focus had a piece about how Germany’s politicians are using social media. It made the dubious claim that 61% of Green top candidate Katrin Göring-Eckardt’s Twitter followers could have been bought (JPG of that part of the Focus piece here). Let’s actually instead try to get […]
What is going on in German politics, just 7 months ahead of the 24th September Bundestag election? How can a party, the SPD – that was consistently 10 points behind the CDU in the polls – suddenly be running neck and neck with Angela Merkel’s party? This graph from Wikipedia […]
So often the political debate about migration and integration sees the issues at the level of the society as a whole. What can city/region/country do with X thousand new people? How will those areas change? What opportunities or burdens will all of this present to that area? How will the […]