On the off chancellor: Friedrich Merz, one year in

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  The Economist.

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  Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist.

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  I'm Jason Palmer.

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  And I'm Rosie Blau.

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  Today on the show, why your chatbot is suddenly selling to you

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  and how the rhetoric of war has changed for the worse.

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  And a little content warning here for the swearier.

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  But first...

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  Friedrich Merz has something of an unpredictable streak in him.

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  Off-color remarks, flashes of anger, notably against Angela Merkel,

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  who chucked him out of the upper ranks of their Christian Democratic Union.

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  But he found his way back and one year ago today, he took office

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  as the oldest new chancellor in 75 years, leading a centrist coalition with the Social Democrats.

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  As expected, he made bold early moves, shuffling ministries around and creating new ones,

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  shoring up defense ties with France and diplomatic ones with Poland.

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  But you might say it's all been downhill from there

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  because it's the problems at home that were always going to test him.

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  Well, and his knack for getting on the nerves of the powerful.

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  This government took office one year ago with a mandate

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  to lift the spirits of a country that had been in the economic doldrums for years.

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