German election diary: Laschet’s hope; avian alarm; your TV guide

THOSE CLOSE to him warn that Armin Laschet is always written off prematurely. Look at the record. In 2017 Mr Laschet led his centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) to an unexpected victory in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state. This January he saw off a challenge from his party’s right wing to win the CDU’s national leadership, and three months later bested Markus Söder, the more popular leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sibling, the Christian Social Union (CSU), to become the parties’ joint candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor. Could Mr Laschet pull it off again? His campaign has been . One month ago the CDU/CSU fell behind the Social Democrats (SPD), led by the popular , in opinion polls, and has stayed there ever since. Yet the last week has seen a (modest) tightening; most polls now have the CDU/CSU and the SPD within their margin of error. Despite the SPD’s small lead, ’s , which has analysed the performance of polls in past elections, gives the CDU/CSU a two-thirds chance of taking first place on Sunday. Mr Laschet’s confidantes are quietly hopeful. A campaign full of surprises may yet have one more to spring.