Unfit by Comparison
On Wednesday Olaf Scholz was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany and leader of a brand new coalition government made up of Scholz’s SPD, the Greens and the FDP. This is no small feat, given the sometimes fractious campaign that led to the election in September, and the protracted period of intense negotiations between the parties through October and November. All told, it took 73 days between election and the moment Olaf Scholz stood before the Bundestag and accepted his nomination as chancellor with a characteristically simple “Ja”.
Olaf Scholz is a man of few words it seems, so much so that Süddeutsche Zeitung framed its commentary of Wednesdays inauguration process by counting the few times Scholz actually said anything. Even when President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a fellow member of the SPD, handed him his certificate of appointment early on Wednesday, Scholz stayed tight lipped, looking more than a little uncomfortable in front of the assembled German media. The new chancellor is frequently described as the “Scholzomat”, more machine than politician. He’s not a showman, there won’t be any fireworks or outbursts and perhaps it’s this fact that brought him to the doors of the Palais Schaumburg. After 16 years of Angela Merkel’s steady hands on the wheel, it seems German voters want more of the same.
As Scholz was being congratulated by friends and foes alike in the Bundestag, roughly a thousand kilometres away a very different leader was facing the music. After months of lurching from u-turns to scandals, Boris Johnson stood at the dispatch box in the House of Commons doing what he does best, prevaricating, bloviating and spinning in the time honoured tradition of Prime Ministers Questions. Watching Boris Johnson at PMQs over the last year has been to watch a person so clearly out of his depth miraculously cling on to power. Johnson has been described as ‘teflon’ by commentators; nothing ever sticks to him. Whether it’s rising covid deaths, tax hikes or accusations of corruption, Boris Johnson has seemed impervious to accusations that in the past would have ended in a resignation letter and a chauffeur driven exit from Downing Street.
However, something is shifting. Rumours of a lockdown breaking party in Downing Street last Christmas began as a trickle, then a flood and after leaked footage of his spokesperson joking about the event surfaced on Tuesday, a tsunami. Political scandals are nothing new in Britain, but given the greased pig like qualities of the current Prime Minister, there will often be a debate over how much the average voter really cares. Sure the scandals might be bad, but have they “cut-through” the many distractions we all face on a daily basis? When it came to Boris Johnson, the answer was usually no. Johnson has often been able to correctly gauge exactly how much people cared about the things he did, gambling correctly that with Brexit looming and then the pandemic, most people would ignore the convention breaking for the greater good. Now though, light entertainers are regularly mocking him on prime-time TV, while the Rupert Murdoch owning Sun newspaper printed a headline with Johnson dressed as the Grinch on their front page. Just in case you were wondering, that’s some very serious cut-through
I’m frequently told that comparisons between countries, especially with regards to politics, are unhelpful, but it’s very hard not to when you see an ambitious new government take power in your adopted country, while in your former home the clown car of a dumpster fire rages uncontrollably. The comparison between Germany and Britain brings into stark relief just how far Britain has fallen, some may say I’m “doing down Britain” but I rather think that’s the natural result of electing personality over competence.
The new German government isn’t exactly free of scandal themselves of course. As finance minister in the Angela Merkel led coalition elected in 2017, Scholz was somewhat tainted by the fallout that accompanied the collapse of Wirecard, while coalition partners Die Grünen and their candidate Annalena Baerbock suffered a minor but damaging scandal over plagiarism during the election campaign. Moreover, as the German government prepared to to take the reins, there was widespread criticism of Olaf Scholz and other politicians for cosying up to right-wing Bild Zeitung at a charity event hosted by the tabloid. Yet, these scandals pale in comparison to those faced by Johnson
Not all of the problems in Britain are Boris Johnson’s fault mind you, some are structural. Remember, the current Tory government gained power and an eighty seat majority on the back of only 42% of the votes cast. In Germany, Scholz and his coalition partners spent months discussing how they would make their government work in the interests of Germany. The British electoral system handed the Johnson government the power to do as it wished, which unsurprisingly means doing what’s in the interests of the Tory party rather than the country as a whole. Britain and Germany face similar pressures, threats and divisions, but in one country the government is forced to work together and compromise, while in the other their is only one party calling the shots based on their own party political whims. The German election system may be complex at times, but it’s a damn sight better than the creaking antiquity of in Britain that hands ultimate power to one party.
Britain feels like it’s light years behind, especially when you consider ambitious nature of the project outlined by the Ampel-Koalition (traffic light coalition). The Progressive appointments, plans to lower the voting age to 16, legalise cannabis, tackle the climate crisis, repair the economy and kickstart a new era of infrastructural improvement. Their policies may not go far enough for some, but they go much further than anything seen in Britain for the last ten years. To some extent the ambitious nature of the new German government comes off the back of Merkel’s time as chancellor. As steady as her hands may have been, Merkel rarely seemed prepared to grab the the bull by the horns and tackle some of the glaring issues that are now left to the incoming administration. The focus on stability was arguably important, but the last decade has often felt like Germany was on pause; it functioned, but it rarely moved forward.
Britain has also been on pause for the last ten years, but for very different reasons. The credit-crunch and bailing out the banks gutted the public purse and to make up the shortfall the British government of David Cameron did what Tory governments do best, they cut anything they could, closing libraries, pulling funding from charities and cutting benefits to the most vulnerable. This would have been bad enough, but then Cameron allowed Brexit to happen. From David Cameron’s premiership, then Theresa May’s and now Boris Johnson’s, Britain has lost a decade through self inflicted wounds.
It might be the case that that in a few years Britain will see it’s own move towards sensible, unflashy government, but right now it just seems like a real-time experiment in how to ruin a country from the inside. Britain desperately needs to move forward, but before it can, it needs to make the first step. I don’t know about you, but shedding the weight of a self indulgent, lazy, prevaricator might be a good start.
