May was ambushed because Merkel is too weak to lead the EU

Because the Chancellor’s coalition its riven by internal disputes, she has lost the authority to knock heads together on Brexit.

Garvan Walshe: The world sorely needs militant democrats

McCain knew that politics should be a fierce contest, restrained by respect for civilians and one’s enemies.

Damaged by last year’s election. Playing for time. Grappling with revolts – and resignation threats. We refer, of course, to Merkel.

The German Chancellor faces a rebellion from her Bavarian allies on the question of immigration – and is pleading for more time before the EU summit.

A new play explores life after Brexit, when the old parties are swept aside and an irresistible popular movement is born

Michael McManus uses the theatre to explore the potential for an anti-immigrant party to break away not from the Tories, but from Labour.

Votes loom on the EU Withdrawal Bill in the Lords. Which places a big responsibility on Labour’s leader there – Angela Smith.

Crossbench votes are always crucial in the Upper House as it now is. But the decisive role in the Bill’s consideration may well be played by the Official Opposition.

Henry Newman: The unified reaction to the Skripal affair suggests talk of Britain’s ‘isolation’ was premature

To listen to some commentators a few weeks ago, you’d have thought it was only EU membership – not shared interests and values – that brings allies together.

Daniel Hannan: Being good at governing is no guarantee of re-election – just ask Harper and Key

Voters habitually opt for parties of the Right when times are tough, only to ditch them for the Left once there’s money to spare. But now populists seek to break the cycle.

A new grand coalition in Germany may be a boon for AfD

If both of the main parties remain locked together in an unpopular pact, it creates more space in which new challengers can grow.

The destruction of German conservatism by Merkel and Kohl

Conventional German politics is still paralysed because being German is still almost impossibly difficult, and being European is pretty difficult, too.

One of the main dangers for Brexit is the German preference for going on talking indefinitely

Berlin has a quite different, and far more leisurely, sense of time to London.

Outsiders are not always good, and governments are not always bad

The columnist Steve Richards examines the rise of the modern demagogues, and their eventual, inevitable failure.

Garvan Walshe: Macron’s victory means that May’s Brexit strategy must change fast

By seeing off Le Pen and electing the most ideologically pro-EU president since Giscard d’Estaing, France has changed the game.

Iain Duncan Smith: Britain last June. America last month. Now Italy. Next, Germany? France? Holland? Revolt against the elites is sweeping the West.

Are we seeing a convulsion as great as 1968 – or even 1848?

Don’t expect Merkel to save Britain’s Brexit bacon

But Germany faces conundrums of its own: how to save the euro, and how to lead in Europe without frightening everyone.

Why the Right should make its peace with the State

It is not so much like a parent or a nanny as a brother. Not Big Brother, to be sure, but Little Brother – to be treated both with sibling rivalry and understated love.