Polanski has also failed to show to voters on the centre-left that the Greens would be a credible party of government, e.g. on foreign affairs. Labour will be pleased with this.

The CDU is crucial to the stability of German democracy, but this doesn’t look stable at all.

Worrying that 1/3 of CDU deputies in Saxony Anhalt very likely crossed over and voted for the AfD state parliament speaker.

Good Tory policy on universal free childcare hours- the current system really does set crazy counterproductive incentives for taxpayers around the threshold. And earning a lot of money (and paying a lot of tax) shouldn’t mean that you should be excluded from these types of working parent benefits.

It‘s really not clear at all, where the country goes from here.

I guess there is a point to drawing a dividing line and letting the PSD-AUR majority look a bit ridiculous in hearings, but it doesn’t make forming a government any easier.

Unless I‘m missing something, it looks very unlikely that Muresan will get anywhere close to enough MPs to support his minority government at the investiture vote tomorrow and this has been clear for some time, so it‘s a bit of a puzzle to me why we are going through the motions here.

It sets out a vision where they want to take the country. It also makes it more likely that we’ll get an earlier election, not next year, but in 2028.

This is a strategy of having it both ways- sticking to fiscal rules and thinking big. Making big promises that you don’t have to implement immediately- it’s clever because „small steps now, big steps later“ gets centre-left parties out of the immediate fiscal constraint, at least for a while.

That was overall a good speech from Burnham with some big ideas including electoral reform, social care reform and an open-ended relationship with the EU. The strategy here is to set out a bold progressive agenda, but leave implementation for after an election (or when there is fiscal room re care).

A lack of obvious talent in politics is a problem for parties on the centre-left in other countries. I don’t see that in the US (which has other problems, but talent isn’t one).

Might be a bit controversial, but a party that counts amongst its potential Presidential candidates politicians of the caliber of Ossoff and AOC is maybe not quite as badly in crisis as it appears. There is a talented millennial generation ready to lead.

If, as predicted, Muresan loses the vote, all cards are off again & President Dan might continue to look for that elusive government formula that can get enough votes in parliament (it's been 5 months now), or the country might be heading towards new elections, with far-right AUR leading the polls.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump's Ambassador to Greece, allegedly claimed as much at a dinner with a Greek minister & there were meetings between the PSD Party President & Guilfoyle in spring.