Grim news, folks, the far right has surged in Germany's federal elections this weekend.

They're now stronger than at any point since the defeat of the Nazis 80 years ago.

Now, here are lessons for where many countries, including Britain, are heading.

The Far-I-A-FD double-de-vote share securing 20% and 152 seats on a platform including the deportation of

German migrants. Now, this is the latest example of a general trend, the rise of far-right

authoritarianism in the West. The ascendant far-right is a symptom of the decline of the West and

an accelerant of that decline. Now, it's not all bad news. DeLinka, the left party,

which was written off a few months ago, won 9% of the elections and nearly doubled its number

of seats. I'll talk more about that. But I was at an exuberant DeLinka party in Berlin,

where a very inspiring Kurdish-German politician won a decisive victory.

But overall, let's talk about it, the Conservative Christian Democratic Union came top,

29% of the vote, with 208 seats, while the Social Democrats, which headed the defeated

governing coalition, had their worst result since the 19th century.

Now, this is a story we're seeing all over Western Europe. Social Democrats,

abandoning social democracy, proving unable to protect the living standards and security

of working class people. And the far out is offered their own answers to that, that your lives

are difficult, not because of an economic system rigged in favour of elites,

but because of migrants and refugees. Now, the AFD were particularly strong in Eastern Germany,

where many working class people suffered the de-industrialisation, which came with the restoration

of capitalism, and resented the loss of security that then came to be. Now, the definition of working class used by pollsters is often too restrictive,

but with that caveat, the AFD secured 38% of voters defined as working class,

up from 21% last time.

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