14/03/2018 Newsnight

Mr Speaker, there is no

alternative conclusion

other than that

the Russian state was culpable

for the attempted murder of

Mr Skripal and his daughter.

Relations between Britain and Russia

are put into a deep freeze.

Russia responds by saying -

we are used to cold weather.

Rarely does Britain find itself

at the centre of such a major

diplomatic struggle.

We'll hear from the

Security Minister.

And did Jeremy Corbyn judge it

right in his response?

Some of his own MPs don't think so.

The Shadow Security Minister

will explain Labour's position.

Brexit Secretary David Davis

has been travelling

the continent today -

and seeming to make Brexit

concessions to the Europeans,

exclusively to Nick Watt.

I'm not bothered too much about the

question of whether it's Christmas

2020 all Easter 2021.

So if it means

Christmas 2020, you'd go for that?

I'd go for that.

Also tonight, we're

with Stephen Hawking's

famous collaborator,

the mathematician

Sir Roger Penrose.

And Angela Merkel has

been sworn in for her

fourth term in office -

but Germany now has to contemplate

political life without her.

Gabriel Gatehouse

is in the Rhineland.

Hello.

The British response came today -

ten days after Sergei Skripal,

his daughter and Detective Sergeant

Nick Bailey were so badly poisoned

by Novichok nerve agent.

23 Russian diplomats are to be

expelled, there's a vow to freeze

Russian assets that pose a threat

here, a suspension of high level

contacts, and a downgrading

of Britain's attendance

at the World Cup.

Britain has had some international

support this evening -

the US ambassador to the UN,

Nikki Haley, said it was

the Russians that did it.

The French have been

mildly more circumspect.

But the Russians themselves?

They said it's absolutely

unacceptable and unworthy

of the British to seek to aggravate

relations in pursuit

of "unseemly political ends".

At the UN tonight, they demanded

material proof of the allegedly

found Russian trace.

Lots to talk about -

let's hear from Mark Urban first,

on the British approach.

So the spy expulsions are on.

Nearly two dozen regarded

as intelligence operatives under

diplomatic cover have been told

to pack their bags and be out

within a week.

This is only one of a number

of measures the British

government is taking,

many of them likely not to be

announced publicly and many

of them likely to be

what President Eisenhower used

to call quiet military measures

that your adversary would see

and understand, but the public

wouldn't necessarily see.

Along with the decision to expel

23 Russian diplomats,

there will be more checks on private

flights, customs and freight.

There will be asset freezes

for Russians who've

threatened UK nationals.

British officials will

boycott the World Cup.

High-level contacts

such as a planned visit

by the Russian Foreign Minister

will be suspended,

and there will be new laws

against hostile state activity.

A long list, but maybe

a little short on specifics.

And underlying a tentative approach

is some tentative language.

The Government is hesitant to pin

this unequivocally on Russia.

They have treated the use

of a military grade nerve agent

in Europe with sarcasm,

contempt and defiance.

So, Mr Speaker, there is no

alternative conclusion other

than that the Russian state

was culpable for

the attempted murder of Mr Skripal

and his daughter.

And even in its letter yesterday

to the international

chemical weapons body, the OPCW,

the UK has said of the Novichok

agents: "Russia has previously

produced this agent

and would still be

capable of doing so".

It does not say that

the origin

of the Salisbury

Novichok can be proven.

I think the dilemma probably

is that there is very strong

circumstantial evidence.

The Russians were given the chance

to respond and reacted dismissively.

But there is no suspect,

and therefore there wasn't

a criminal level of proof yet.

But the Government has been under

great pressure to come forward

with an initial set of measures.

They have now done that,

and this is the first stage

of what will, I guess,

now develop into a more general

discussion at the Security Council

in Nato and the EU about what is

behind it and how countries should

now regard Russia in terms of,

are they a responsible

and serious member f the

international community?

So the Government has not yet been

able to tie Russian-made Novichok

by its molecular fingerprint

to the Salisbury poisoning -

not publicly, anyway.

Its decision to involve the OPCW

watchdog in analysing samples

from the incident will

take the crisis onto an

international plane.

I think that is both a

confidence-building measure,

and also plays to one of our great

strengths in the West, right?

Our great contrasting

strengths to the Russians

are transparency, allies

and international institutions.

Russians on the panel?

Well, that would be

the OPCW's choice.

My sense is that the Russians ought

to be present to see

what is happening, but that neither

the Russians nor the British

should be on the panel.

The Government's tentative language

may reflect that they still haven't

identified the precise origin

of the nerve agent,

and they don't seem to have any

suspects in planting it.

But it may also be part

of a strategy to leave some

ambiguity to let the Russians

find an off-ramp.

In the coming days, though,

the language is likely to firm up.

Today's spy expulsion could be

the start of a long path of crisis,

move and countermove.

And all the while, the lives of two

desperately ill people in Salisbury

hang in the balance.

Earlier today, I spoke to

the security minister, Ben Wallace.

I began by asking him what measures

the Government had announced

following Moscow's refusal

to co-operate in the case.

We've taken a step today

that we think is proportionate,

and sends a message to the Russians

that this is not acceptable,

and that things need to change,

but also that downgrades

operationally their ability

of intelligence officers in London

to prosecute espionage against us,

both economically and

in the security space,

and at the same time we've talked

about progressing this

through starting the process

of internationalising the response,

and that's why the Prime Minister

talked about a UN...

A discussion at the UN

Security Council, and she has spoken

to world leaders such

as Donald Trump and

President Macron as well.

And one of the areas that has been

much talked about are financial

measures to sanction probably named

individuals who we suspect

are Putin cronies and friends,

and have significant

assets in London.

Should we be embarrassed, really,

that there are these people

in London, that we have allowed

ourselves to get into the position

where bad people have

felt London is a place,

a comfortable place,

to park money and do business?

I think we should all collectively,

in the body politics, have to take

responsibility for that.

That, you know, we have allowed

the City of London's reputation

as a centre for world finance to be

exploited by some pretty nasty

individuals, who have used illicit

money flows from around the world

to come here, either

to harbour it or to clean

it, or to just move it

around, or invest it.

Let's be clear.

If you are a foreign

oligarch or kleptocrat

bringing money to London,

the party is over.

That London industry

is now going to close.

That is what we want the message

to be, and we are going to do steps

to take the money off

you if we can't get

you as well, and only

last week, Evan, Britain

went up in the rankings

of least corrupt countries.

We are now eighth in the world.

I would like to see that go higher.

It does say, by the way,

the Chemical Weapons Convention,

it does back up one Russian point

on all of this - it is article nine,

paragraph two, for all it matters.

Where a complaint is made,

the country against whom it's made

has ten days to respond.

Should we have given

them the ten days?

Should we have stuck to the form

of the letter of the law,

just so no one can mock us

or laugh at us on the basis

that we haven't stuck to that?

I think we've already

gone a long way.

We took our time and we've done

a thorough job, and that is...

And the reason for that is,

you know, consequences flow from it.

I wanted the public to realise

that we are not cooking this up.

It's not some dodgy dossier.

This is a genuine appraisal

of the facts, the motives,

the responses of Russia,

and have taken the view

that we are certain the evidence

points to Russia deploying this.

You know, you say we could have

given them ten days.

I think within minutes out

of the trap, they said,

"We are not responding

to British demands."

So I think once they said that,

I think it's pretty certain

that we can be in a space that

Russia's denials - which are pretty

legendary in Litvinenko -

are going to remain,

and we are not going to tolerate it.

Removing 23 intelligence

officers from London is...

I think actually some of the public

will be wondering why

we didn't remove them before.

Why didn't you do it before,

given everything we've known

about Russia and Crimea

and Litvinenko and other

assassinations and all

sorts of things?

I think because when you decide

to assert yourself,

there's a cost for that.

There could be reprisals.

Could we contain the threat

they were posing and all that?

That would have been

an operational decision at time.

The Allies have given some

encouragement, haven't they?

The French, the Germans,

even President Trump has given

some encouragement -

"We are on your side, Britain,

we hear what's happened."

Do you fear that that's as far

as they're going to go?

No, no, I don't.

This is the time that

a government earns its money.

Ministers will be out

talking to ambassadors.

Leaders will be ringing leaders,

and we will be developing

and helping design a response that

deters Russia, and also downgrades

their operational ability.

Let's remember, Russia doesn't just

spy on Britain, it spies

on lots of our friends and allies.

It prosecutes cyber crime

against our allies.

We've already named,

helped identify and name,

an number of cyber attacks

by Russia on European allies

and other countries, so we...

You know, they're not stupid.

They know what's going on,

and I think I'm optimistic

we are going to get a good response.

Well, here with me now to discuss

the international reaction

to all this is Nina Schick.

She's from the think

tank Rasmussen Global

and joins me now from Brussels.

A very good evening to you. Nina,

you heard what the security minister

said. He is optimistic there will be

more than rhetoric in support of the

UK. Is that your expectation,

particularly from the Europeans?

The

first thing to point out is that

this attack on the UK is an attack

on all Western European democracies.

I work at Rasmussen Global, and

Rasmussen was the former general

secretary of Nato. We believe there

should be a strong Western response

to this, because this is just the

latest in Russia's hybrid war

against the West. Theresa May has

done all she can do domestically,

but to send Russia a tough message,

she needs to get a coalition behind

her. Ironically, Theresa May has

more records via the EU right now

than perhaps via the US or Nato, and

what she can hope for is... She will

be raising it at the European

Council summit on Friday, and what

she will be hoping for is to ask the

EU to extend sanctions which are

already in place since 2014's

invasion of Ukraine on Russia. That

will be difficult because some

members of the EU are dragging their

feet on that. But because of the

nature of this attack, a very

serious one, she will have a lot of

sympathetic leaders listening to her

in the EU. We have already seen as

very strong response from European

leaders.

It's interesting you say

that. The French were slightly

circumspect. They say they want firm

proof. Last time, after Litvinenko,

the British ambassador to Moscow at

the time said he was talking to EU

leaders at that time about getting

support, this is Tony Brenton, and

he said they were pretty hopeless

and nowhere to be seen.

Absolutely,

it isn't going to be easy. Further

complicated by the fact that the UK

is out of the EU. There are many

Baltic states who will be

sympathetic to the UK's position,

because of their own experiences

with Russia. The best we can hope

for is an extension of those

sanctions which were due to be

extended in June for a period of 12

months rather than six, but still

that is doing something that is the

most effective body of sanctions on

Russia right now. Long-term, to

address the question of Russian

meddling in the western

transatlantic alliance, there has to

be a more robust effort across the

transatlantic, with the EDS, -- with

the US, the EU and Britain. The UK

faces a very difficult challenge

because it's two traditional pillars

of foreign security, one being

Europe and one being the US, are

tenuous at the moment.

Thank you

very much indeed.

Now - after the Prime

Minister's statement today,

Jeremy Corbyn gave a response.

This has turned into quite

a big issue: many

- including Labour MPs -

felt it was too easy

on the Russians, and

too harsh on the UK.

Here's a taste.

The attack in Salisbury

was an appalling act of violence.

How has she responded to the Russian

government's request for a sample

of the agent used in the Salisbury

attack to run its own tests?

Has high resolution trace analysis

been run on a sample of the nerve

agent, and has that revealed any

evidence as to the location

of its production or the identity

of its perpetrators?

Now, a subsequent press briefing

in defence of Jeremy Corbyn

by his spokesman Seamus Milne seemed

to compound things.

He's reported to have

said: "There is a history

between WMDs and intelligence

which is problematic

to put it mildly -

drawing comparison to the flawed

intelligence in the run

up to the Iraq war".

Well,

I'm joined by Nick Thomas-Symonds,

Labour's shadow security minister.

Do you think there is any comparison

to be drawn between the flawed

intelligence in the run-up to Iraq

and we have here?

No. I don't think

it's about flawed intelligence. We

have great confidence in the work of

the security services. It is

obviously a distinction between the

interpretations politicians make of

the intelligence and the

intelligence itself.

But this isn't

an intelligence case, it is a

forensic laboratory result that

found a chemical weapon which the

world knows was developed in the

soviet Union by the Russians. So it

was a stupid comparison, would you

say?

I am not going to accept that

interpretation. We need to shift

from what may or may not have been

said to the actual position. There

has been a very serious incident on

British soil. The evidence points

towards Russia and there are two

possible explanation is that the

Prime Minister gave, either that

Russia was primarily and

deliberately responsible, or it is

negligently responsible in the sense

that it lost control of its nerve

agent. That is the way the evidence

is pointing. And given the failure

to respond from the Russians this

week, the measures the Prime

Minister has proposed are

proportionate.

I was trying to get

you to be harsh on Seamus Milne, but

you don't want to do that. Do you

agree at least that his briefing was

a distraction from the message that

the Labour Party is trying to put

out?

Evan, in terms of the

relationship between what the press

say whether things are taken out of

context.

Michael I don't think he

was taken out of context. I have

your transcript of it with the

comparison to WMD, which seems

strange. There was no WMD and there

obviously is a toxic poison.

There

is obviously an issue as to how

politicians interpret intelligence,

but my point is that we have a very

serious situation and in these

circumstances, we are looking at the

evidence, backing the work that has

been done on the ground, whether it

is the Army, the security services

or the police. Detective Sergeant

Nick Bailey is of course ill and we

are the king of him and Mr Skripal,

his daughter and others who have

been affected by this and we condemn

the actions taken.

In terms of who

you think did it, the Russians is

your most likely culprit?

The

evidence is certainly pointing in

that direction. We see this from the

point that has been made by the

spokesperson for the French

government in recent days. We want

to build the widest possible

international coalition to be able

to tackle this issue and to seek to

ensure, as Jeremy Corbyn said

clearly in the Commons today, that

we do not want this kind of incident

happening on British soil again. To

do that, the better the standard of

proof we can have is surely better

in building an international

coalition.

Jeremy Corbyn didn't

condemn the Russians for the

chemical weapon use on British soil

today. Did he not condemn them

because he thought it was too soon

to condemn them, because he doesn't

think it is them, or just because he

had other things to say?

Firstly, I

don't accept that interpretation of

Jeremy. I was sat on the common

spent as I heard it. He quoted the

Prime Minister verbatim on the two

explanations, and afterwards made

clear that we should have a decisive

and proportional response based on

the evidence.

No one would argue

with that.

That is a reasonable

position for the Leader of the

Opposition to take.

But in a funny

way, in order to have the license to

make those points, a lot of the

public will want to know that he

feels the same kind of outrage over

this happening on our soil that a

lot of other people think, and he

didn't express that outrage. He

said, we must speak out against the

abuse of human rights by the Putin

government and their supporters, but

he didn't seem to show the anger at

what we think the Russians have done

in Salisbury. I wonder whether in

retrospect, that was the wrong way

to go.

I don't accept that. What he

said as a matter of interpretation

for the listener. At the start of

the speech, he made clear his

abhorrent that the use of a nerve

agent like this on a civilian

population in the way that it has

been. Towards the end of the speech,

he also set out his abhorrent is

from Russia's human rights record,

which we unequivocally condemn.

Thanks.

If it sometimes feels

as if the Brexit negotiation

is Britain making one concession

after another, it seems we've

made another one today.

We'd wanted a transition

or implementation phase of around

two years; the EU had said 21 months

- not a big difference,

but Brexit secretary David Davis has

told Newsnight today that he's

willing to yield to the EU view -

although he's also extracted

an agreement that a special

committee will be established

to guarantee a "duty of good

faith" by both sides

during that transition.

David Davis was talking

to our political editor Nick Watt

while on a trip to Prague

and Copenhagen today.

Nick hitched a ride.

In the air, on the road and yes,

into another European chancellery.

For months, David Davis has embarked

on an odyssey around our

neighbouring continent to build

support for his vision of Brexit.

It's Wednesday, so that must mean a

morning RAF plane to shuttle the

Brexit Secretary to two EU capitals

encompassing what was once dubbed

old and new Europe. First up is

Copenhagen.

So you are used to

exercising real power?

David Davis

is now settling in for the first

meeting of the day with an

Samuelsen, the Danish Foreign

Minister. He will be hoping for a

reasonably friendly reception.

Denmark is traditionally on the more

Eurosceptic side in the EU, rather

than the Federalist side. And of

course, Denmark joined the EEC on

the same day as the UK in 1973.

We

talked about some of the issues

where we agree and somewhere they

are not so sure, what we do about

product standards, what we do about

customs. They were interested in

Northern Ireland and all that sort

of thing. And that is part for the

course. This is probably country

number 17 or 18 of this tour, and

that is what we are getting

everywhere. What is it exactly we

are going to do?

are going to do?

Said it has been

David Davis' life for the last few

months, spurning the chance of a

comfy pad in Brussels, he has been

touring EU capitals to try and find

a chink in the surprisingly united

EU front on Brexit. Britain believes

that the final Brexit deal will be

done in the last hours and minutes

of the Brexit negotiations, and

while it will be done in Brussels,

at that point the UK will need

allies and friends amongst EU

leaders who will ultimately call the

shots.

We have now swapped the 1970s

functionalism of Copenhagen for the

early baroque splendour of the Czech

Foreign Ministry. The Czech

Republic's membership of the EU

realise their dream of David Davis'

great heroine, Margaret Thatcher,

spread the EU East and diluted

federalism. He is now meeting the

Czech Foreign Minister, no doubt

hoping for a reward.

The role of

Great Britain is far as foreign

security is concerned is crucial for

Europe. As I said to your minister,

by Brexit, the British Channel is

not wide.

So here we are in Prague,

not in Brussels. Your friend Michel

Barnier has been complaining that

you are not in Brussels. Are you

going to answer his call and turn up

there?

On all of these, we started

discussions with the commission and

kicked things off in Downing Street

about four weeks ago. We talked

through it all. Since then, my team

have been working flat out,

principally in Brussels, and they

have continued through this weekend

and I shall join them on Sunday and

we will have another meeting with

him on Monday. But that is just one

strand. It is the council that make

the decision on what our future

partnership will be. The council is

made up of the member states. I will

be talking to them all and listening

to their concerns, explaining what

we have in mind, what we aim to do,

understanding their interests and

concerns so that we can incorporate

them and make sure we get the right

decision next week.

One of the big

crunch issues on the implementation

period is that the EU says it should

end of the end of December 2020. The

UK says it should be two years,

which would be March 2021. Are you

going to compromise on that?

More

important that that is that we get

the implementation period agreed in

March. It will not be legally signed

until the autumn, but agreed in

March. That is more important to me

than a few months either way. I am

not bothered too much of the

question of whether it is Christmas

2020 or Easter 2021.

So if it means

Chris was 2020, you could live with

that?

I would live with that. We are

still in the middle of negotiation,

but frankly, I would not delay the

decision in order to get a month or

two more.

So on the implementation

period, can you reassure some of

your colleagues at Westminster who

are concerned that the UK will just

be a -- will not just be a vassal

state? Will the UK be able to stick

up for itself?

We want to have in

place a joint committee which will

oversee any issues like this that

come up, and a duty of good faith on

both sides, so neither side is

disadvantaged. We will not fall

under Mr Rees Mogg's interesting

definition of our position!

For now,

this European odyssey is winding

down as David Davis turned his

attention back to Brussels.

Nick Watt and David Davis on the

European tour.

"We are just an advanced breed

of monkeys on a minor planet

of a very average star.

But we can understand the universe.

That makes us something

very special."

So said Stephen Hawking,

who died in the early

hours of this morning.

He certainly understood

the universe better than anyone.

An undisputed national treasure,

internationally admired,

he was not just a great physicist,

he was a man who could frame

the most brilliant and pithiest

of quotes - a quality perhaps born

of the necessity to be

economical with words.

We'll talk to his great

scientific collaborator,

Sir Roger Penrose, in a moment.

But first, we thought we'd

get our technology editor

David Grossman to explain

the physics for which Stephen

Hawking will be remembered.

ALL:

Oh!

Stephen Hawking!

The world's smartest man!

Stephen Hawking's place in popular

culture is unrivalled.

Oh!

I think you are being pedantic.

Astounding.

To think the Lord created

all this in just seven days!

Incorrect.

It took 13.8 billion years.

Like Einstein, on whose birthday

he died, he came to epitomise

the public's idea of a scientist.

But how did the scientist

Stephen Hawking measure up

to the popular icon?

How far did he push forward

the boundaries of human knowledge?

Where should we place him

in the pantheon of great scientists?

If you look, for example, at one

measure, winners of Nobel prizes,

Hawking doesn't feature.

It's very hard to rank

scientists and put them one

after the other in a list,

but he would certainly number

amongst the very top

scientists that we've seen

in the last few decades.

I think it's particularly

hard if you're a pure

theoretical physicist,

which is what Stephen Hawking was,

where you are working right

at the forefront of what we know,

on ideas that are going to be very

hard to test for the foreseeable

future, and I think there's

a danger, when you choose to do

that, that it's much harder

for people to actually identify,

yes, there's a particular

prediction that we can test

right now, and check

that your ideas are correct.

Stephen Hawking's most significant

work was on the black holes.

He suggested that since

they collapse matter

into an infinitely dense point,

a singularity, they act

like a big bang in reverse,

and therefore may hold clues

to the origins of the universe.

And he also proved that one

of the previously accepted defining

characteristics of a black hole may

in fact be false.

I discovered that black holes

are not that black after all.

They give off what has been

called Hawking radiation.

Because of this emission,

black holes will lose mass

and eventually evaporate completely.

Hawking's theories were fiercely

contested among his peers.

I think at first there is always

resistance to new ideas,

and these were really new.

In fact, even the very first time

Stephen Hawking wrote about some

of his ideas about black holes,

he called the paper

Black Hole Explosions?,

with a question mark at the end,

suggesting that even he was a little

bit concerned about

the really radical

ideas he was coming up with.

No one can accuse Stephen Hawking

of not being ambitious.

In trying to unify the seemingly

contradictory theories

of physics into one,

unified, grand theory,

he was working at the very edges

of human understanding.

The fact that he did so in a way

that excited and inspired those

who know nothing about physics

is a measure of an

extraordinary mind.

David Grossman there.

Joining me now in the studio

is Sir Roger Penrose.

He worked with Stephen Hawking

for over 40 years, co-authoring

the bestselling book "The Nature

of Space and Time".

Back in 1988 he and Hawking won

the Wolf Prize for their work

in "greatly enlarging our

understanding of the origin

and possible fate of the universe".

Good evening to you. So your main

collaboration was around 1970. How

different were things at that time

in his condition and his ability to

work?

He was a lot more able, and he

could talk. When I first met him I

didn't notice anything wrong at all.

It was very early stages. And I

could see gradually over the years

getting successively worse. But the

work we did together was largely

before that. The paper we roped

together in the royals fight on the

singularity question was something

which he had difficulty in speaking,

at that time. Most of the

collaboration, curiously enough, was

done over the telephone. There was

only one meeting when he came to

where I was working.

I interviewed

him once. I had no idea how much

harder it was to communicate than

had been let on by the media. When

it was broadcast at the interview,

it was a fluent interview, I asked

the question and there came an

answer. But the answers took a long

time to prepare.

Yes. And the

curious thing, when I conversed with

him when he could talk, I could get

on quite well as long as it was an

science or mathematics. Then there

was the odd point when he would say

something I couldn't understand at

all. It was either a joke or an

invitation to dinner. It was quite

curious than... That the scientific

communication was much easier.

You

collaborated for ages, but then you

drifted apart.

We did. The main

difference was to do with quantum

mechanics. Although there was a

slight moment, to do with his

discoveries about the black hole if

evaporation and all that, and the

implications of that, and the

questions of whether black holes

actually swallow information, which

is what he said originally, and I

agree with. But later on, he came to

the conclusion that because of the

general principles of quantum

mechanics, it can't swallow

information. So he went over to a

different camp.

He went over to the

other side! The early Stephen

Hawking with your collaborator.

We

still got on very well.

Help us out

on how great a physicist he was, and

how he will be remembered by

physicists. We know that the public

are very taken with the man and the

story.

We have to separate the

remarkable fact of what he did with

the physical condition he had. It is

astounding, no doubt about that. You

cannot compare him with Einstein,

who created theories which

encompassed huge areas of physics,

which were different to theories

that existed before. He didn't do

that. He worked within theories that

were accepted at the time, and then

he combined work with general

activity on quantum mechanics with

the one major thing that nobody

disputes was due to him, which was

this black hole evaporation.

You

told me earlier that you did see him

a couple of months ago at a lecture.

I did indeed.

Thank you so much for

coming in.

Thank you.

The German general election seems

like an age ago now,

it was back on the 24th

September last year.

And today, almost six months later,

Angela Merkel was sworn in for her

fourth term as Chancellor.

It was the obvious outcome

of that election, but boy,

it took a long time coming.

The German President,

Frank-Walter Steinmeier,

formally appointed Merkel's

new Cabinet and said

"It is good that the time

of uncertainty is over,

"these are testing

years for democracy".

He was talking about

the world in general -

and we know what he means.

But it's certainly been a testing

few months for Germany,

as it has confronted the idea that

Merkel may not be forever.

Gabriel Gatehouse has been

to a small town in south west

Germany to test the mood there.

Here's his report.

Welcome to Hassloch -

the most average town in Germany.

In fact, this little place,

population 21,400, is so ordinary

that market researchers use it

to test out products.

But are they buying their new

coalition government?

In terms of democratics

and political leanings,

Hassloch is a mirror

of Germany as a whole,

and under the surface,

all is not well.

Hassloch's main attraction

is its holiday park,

closed now for the winter.

During the warmer months, residents

have free access to the rides.

It's something that brings

the townsfolk together.

They collect their passes

from Rosa Tischenko at the citizens'

office, who's worked

here for nearly two decades.

In truth, no one in Hassloch seemed

particularly excited

by Angela Merkel's reannointment

as Chancellor this morning.

She's got her fourth term thanks

to another coalition deal

between her Conservatives

and the centre-left SPD.

Angela Merkel's new coalition

promises a new dynamism,

a new cohesion for Germany.

In reality, though, these

are the same two parties that have

run this country for eight out

of the past 12 years,

and now Germans can look

forward to four more years

of the same old faces.

The SPD initially resisted another

coalition, but the pull of Merkel

and the logic of Germany's consensus

politics led inexorably

back to the status quo.

As in the rest of Germany,

so in Hassloch, at the last

election, the two main traditional

parties won their smallest share

of the vote since the war,

losing out to the right

wing, nationalist AfD.

It's the development

of the refugees in Germany.

That's the main reason?

It's the main reason, I think,

and you have to find these answers.

Did Angela Merkel mishandle

the refugee crisis?

I don't think...

From the human side,

she has to do this.

You don't see many refugees

on the streets of Hassloch,

but it's not hard to find people

who are worried about them.

We were invited into the home

of a local policeman.

He once voted CDU, but the refugee

crisis prompted him to join the AfD.

His book shelf, at first

glance, looks alarming.

Oh, bloody hell!

I thought this was

banned in Germany.

No.

This only commentary.

It turns out to be the legally

sanctioned, academically annotated

version of Mein Kampf.

The policeman says he has no time

for Nazis, but he's also lost

patience with mainstream politics.

A few streets away,

but on the opposite end

of the political spectrum,

we meet a local pastor.

In his spare time, he fixes

old bicycles to give

away to refugees who,

he says, are welcome in Germany.

But on one subject he and

the policeman agree.

Under Merkel, politics is stagnated.

Yes, because it's the same,

the same people.

The same people?

The same people.

It's Merkel, it's SPD,

and I have no hope that

anything changes with her.

Germany has to wait

for a new government after her.

Like Manchester United!

But in Hassloch that an average

town, political differences are very

much alive and kicking.

In the evening, Peter

the policeman invites us

to his local football club.

Hello.

How are you?

We go!

What's going on?

It's not a friend of AfD.

Oh, OK.

You want not to remain?

You make decision...

We go.

We go in.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Some political

disagreement, I think.

In this time we have problem.

Right.

In the club.

Because 50% want not AfD.

Right.

And the other want AfD.

I see.

So are you losing friends?

Yes, maybe.

And this is you here, is it?

Yes.

Looking at your phone?

Looking at the wrong place?

Peter split with Merkel

over the refugee crisis,

but his views on this subject

are in fact less radical

than you might expect.

Right, so you think you should let

in people from Syria,

from Iraq, from Afghanistan?

Yes.

You should?

The issue of refugees has become

a totemic dividing line.

To many Germans, yet another

coalition government feels

like going round in circles.

And here's the paradox.

The more the mainstream

cultivates consensus,

the more society seems polarised.

That's all we have

time for - good night.