Photo by Leon Neal – WPA Pool /Getty Images It is uncanny how similar the political drama currently playing out in Germany is to the one playing in the UK right now. Just as Keir Starmer is struggling to remain in power in London, so the German chancellor Friedrich Merz is struggling to hold on to power in Berlin. Like Starmer, Merz has not been in power for long. In fact, Merz has been in power for even less time than Starmer – he just completed a year in office a week ago. But he too suffers from historically low approval ratings for a recently elected head of government. Merz leads a coalition of his own Christian Democrat party and the Social Democrats, who led the previous Ampelkoalition (“traffic light coalition”). Merz had slammed the Ampelkoalition for its incoherence and inertia and said that Olaf Scholz just didn’t have what it took to be chancellor. But after promising a fresh start when he took over in May 2025, Merz now finds himself in the same situation as his predecessor.…