The rotten state: How corruption and chumocracy are
pulling Britain apart.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2024/01/the-rotten-state
French farmers close in on Paris as government
struggles to calm protests
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240131-french-farmers-maintain-siege-of-paris-as-govt-struggles-to-calm-protests
Anna Sauerbrey notes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/31/opinion/germany-protests-far-right.html
German democracy is not well. The problem is not just the rise of the AfD, which has become strong enough in some regions to aspire to positions of power or at least to seriously disrupt the process of forming stable governments. It’s that in many parts of the country, a general sense of discontent has tipped over into disdain. People now reject not just the current government but the whole political system.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, this feeling has built up in Germany. And it is true that Germans have had to deal with a lot: the war in Ukraine, an energy crisis, inflation and, most recently, the painful fallout from war in Gaza. Even though immigration is rising, we still lack skilled labor — teachers, plumbers, I.T. specialists — and public infrastructure is crumbling. Add in an ambitious government green transition agenda hamstrung by brutal infighting and you get a grim picture. Everything, it seems, is changing — and not for the better.
Europe Regulates Its Way to Last Place
https://www.wsj.com/economy/europe-regulates-its-way-to-last-place-2a03c21d
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2024/01/the-rotten-state
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240131-french-farmers-maintain-siege-of-paris-as-govt-struggles-to-calm-protests
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/31/opinion/germany-protests-far-right.html
German democracy is not well. The problem is not just the rise of the AfD, which has become strong enough in some regions to aspire to positions of power or at least to seriously disrupt the process of forming stable governments. It’s that in many parts of the country, a general sense of discontent has tipped over into disdain. People now reject not just the current government but the whole political system.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, this feeling has built up in Germany. And it is true that Germans have had to deal with a lot: the war in Ukraine, an energy crisis, inflation and, most recently, the painful fallout from war in Gaza. Even though immigration is rising, we still lack skilled labor — teachers, plumbers, I.T. specialists — and public infrastructure is crumbling. Add in an ambitious government green transition agenda hamstrung by brutal infighting and you get a grim picture. Everything, it seems, is changing — and not for the better.
Europe Regulates Its Way to Last Place
https://www.wsj.com/economy/europe-regulates-its-way-to-last-place-2a03c21d