How Friedrich Merz betrayed his voters

German politics has delivered yet another masterclass in how to betray your voters while maintaining a straight face. This time it is Friedrich Merz, the supposedly steel-spined conservative who spent years critiquing Angela Merkel’s drift leftward, who has now managed to outdo even his predecessor’s talent for abandonment of what he promised.

Merz’s capitulation on Germany’s constitutional debt brake – a cornerstone of his campaign – took precisely fourteen days. Not even Britain’s most notorious policy flip-floppers could match such efficiency. The CDU leader who thundered about fiscal discipline on the campaign trail has now, with indecent haste, embraced the Social Democrats’ spend-now-worry-later philosophy, leaving Germany’s vaunted Swabian housewife – that mythical guardian of Teutonic thrift – face down in the political gutter.

What is particularly infuriating is the asymmetry of this surrender. Merz’s CDU secured 28 per cent of the vote in February’s election – a mandate that, while hardly overwhelming, should have given him significant leverage in coalition negotiations.