00:00Well, the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz seems to be sort of be taking a page out of Emmanuel Macron's book,
00:07which is talking about the UK and Brexit, when really he should be more worried about his own country.
00:14I mean, once again, we can see how unpopular Merz has become among the German people.
00:20Just look at some of these numbers.
00:22You've got 59% of the country saying the government's reforms are going in the wrong way.
00:29Very, very dire scores, again, for Merz personally.
00:32You can see again here, when it comes to the main challenger to the government, the AFD,
00:38some actually in favour of banning the AFD, 43% of the country, 51% opposing that.
00:45But also when it comes to cooperating with the AFD, well, 45% overall saying that the other parties should
00:55refuse to,
00:56in principle, to work with the AFD whatsoever.
01:00But it looks like Merz is feeling the pressure.
01:02There have been reports, and there's Alice Vidal there, leader of the AFD,
01:07saying that Merz potentially could, instead of being in government in a coalition with the Social Democrats,
01:13go for a minority government.
01:15But there's absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the Conservatives and Merz are feeling the pressure.
01:22And you saw in the vote for the regional assembly speaker in Saxony-Arnholt recently,
01:27it appeared, I mean, I think it was a secret vote,
01:30but it appeared that some of the Conservatives actually voted for the AFD candidate there,
01:38and all sorts of vows there.
01:42You can see that there should be consequences after that.
01:46And it's whether or not now this firewall against the AFD will hold,
01:51or will the Conservatives, instead of governing with the Social Democrats,
01:57end up forming an alliance with the AFD?
02:00And yeah, to be clear, the AFD's candidate on the speaker ballot, they've got 48 votes.
02:04That's four more than the combined number of votes that the AFD and the left-wing BSW party have together.
02:13So other people voted for that candidate, and it appears some of the Conservatives may have done so.
02:19But the real collapse you're seeing, and this is what is shaping everything,
02:23is in the national polls.
02:26And this is the latest one where you can see here,
02:28the gap is widening literally by the week in terms of the AFD's poll lead.
02:33They're over 30% now.
02:36The Conservatives are under 20%, they're on about 17.5% there,
02:41with the Social Democrats in joint third with the Greens, and 14.5%.
02:46But that is a pretty dramatic collapse for the Conservatives,
02:51and clearly they are having serious conversations as to the best way forward.
02:55As ever though, guys, please do let me know your thoughts on that in the comments below.
02:59Please do whack this video.
03:00A quick thumbs up, and of course, as ever, cheers for watching.
