Tom Nuttall

Got a piece on that coming soon

In both Britain and France we are witnessing the agonies of electoral systems ill-suited to political fragmentation and changing voter behaviour. In Germany, for all the grumbling and the pearl-clutching over the Brandmauer, we're not there yet.

The answer is right there: "Our European friends, many of whom are facing similar challenges to us, are thinking hard about partnering with third countries to deport illegal immigrants, and under my leadership this is a conversation the United Kingdom would be part of." Instead....this.

Europe’s biggest military project could collapse Industrial bickering is putting the Future Combat Air System at risk

Will FCAS ever take off? One of the most ambitious military projects Europe has ever known is teetering on the edge, thanks to industrial bickering. With help from excellent colleagues
@sophiepedder.bsky.social & @shashj.bsky.social www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

Not sure if she made the explicit connectino with Putin, but she regularly said after 2015-16 that Germany/Europe should have acted earlier to pre-empt the movements by paying attention to what was happening in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon etc

German asylum claims have halved in the last year. Nothing to do with border theatre; everything to do with developments outside the EU that hardly ever play a role in European countries' domestic migration debates. Still, take the win if it allows you to change the subject.

It's the destiny that awaits all of us. The Dutch just got there first. Not even FPTP can protect you

The AfD qualified for three mayoral run-offs in cities in North Rhine-Westphalia today, and lost all by big margins. The lesson is not that we have overdone the AfD's rise, but that we do perhaps sometimes underestimate the counter-mobilisation effects - including in east Germany, incidentally.

Spätsommer Brandenburg

Neuland, as a great politician once said.

"experts say"
www.cnn.com/2025/08/11/b...

do Brits realise how demented their ID card debate looks from basically every other European country?

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What this actually means: "The US washes its hands of the conflict altogether; Ukraine seems to be doing fine on its own and it not, it's up to Europe to help it out; no more direct aid to Ukraine; the US now regards NATO as basically European and will help it from afar but not as a member."

For the first time the AfD has nudged ahead of the Union in this national polling aggregator, perhaps Germany's most reliable. Beware cope about the AfD losing this or that mayoral election, including in NRW this coming weekend. Something important is shifting.

An occasional series

So far the rise of the AfD in Germany looks less like a wave across the country than a wedge driven inside it. My report after North Rhine-Westphalia's local elections. www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

I don't really have any Robert Redford takes other than to note that I went to Sundance in 2014 and it was just such a wonderful experience, far better than I'd imagined. Fantastic atmosphere, great films, lovely people.

There's no shortage of copium in the idea that the AfD, in tripling its score in NRW, somehow had a bad night. It's also true that it fell short of expectations, inspired strong resistance from centrist parties, and that some strong local candidates were able to stage effective anti-AfD campaigns.

YouTube video by Far Out Recordings Hermeto Pascoal - Jegue

RIP! www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsnQ...

Sometimes German headlines hit different

I don't want to know what a groyper is and you can't make me

At least we now have an answer to this.

LAP Coffee: The trouble is brewing - The Berliner Fast-growing LAP Coffee is selling more than €2.50 cappuccinos. What does their rise say about the future of hospitality in Berlin?

Enjoyable article about the "epidemic-like spread" of a Berlin coffee chain that has committed the one sin that some Berliners cannot forgive: attracting lots of custom by selling a good product at a low price.
www.the-berliner.com/berlin/lap-c...

And not only this - there is not a little discontent among German officials that the Fr-UK tandem is so gung-ho about placing troops on the ground to secure a meaningful US backstop. Creates a domestic headache for Merz he could do without.

No

This new poll suggests the state of Saxony-Anhalt (pop 2m) could deliver Germany a political earthquake at its election next year.

At 39%, forming a govt without the AfD will be near-impossible. And these numbers will intensify tensions inside the state CDU over maintaining the anti-AfD firewall.

Opinion | Mass Migration and Liberalism’s Fall

A useful test of whether pieces arguing that Merkel's immigration policy spurred the AfD's rise have anything useful to say is to check if they acknowledge the decline in AfD vote share between 2017 & 2021. On that measure, and not only that one, this falls short. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/o...

Ukraine: Spahn und Miersch sind gemeinsam nach Kiew gereist Nach einem holprigen Start setzen die Fraktionsspitzen von Union und SPD ein gemeinsames Zeichen.

Have representatives from any other country's squabbling coalition governments performatively used trips to Kyiv to demonstrate their comity?
www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/ukra...