to you, what do you make of that statement that the AFD is now seen by many as a party of hope? What are your thoughts on that?

Previously, we used to say that the AFD was a protest party and gained protest votes.

And increasingly, I think instead what we've seen is that people have, that the voters have an affinity with the party.

with its policies and indeed with the candidates that it has rather than being simply a protest against the existing system.

And that, of course, should give real concern to mainstream parties.

That being said, I just wonder if this is also part of a general sense of hopelessness and frustration in Germany at the moment.

Would we be having this conversation if the German economy was growing steadily at 3% a year? I suspect we might not.

Ed, just coming on this, is the AFD now here to stay as a major player in German politics, or is this result a one-off?

and then in terms of the the far right the afd and their their policies and ideology can you can you draw us a bit of a pen picture of what it is that they stand for and wish to achieve

Absolutely.

I mean, there's some internal variants.

So in this case, it's particularly extreme branch.

The intelligence services class in Saxony-Anhalt has been confirmed right wing extremist, talks about a complete stop on non-European immigration, for example, but also changing school curricula, more Bismarck, less Hitler.

as one of their politicians put it, an end to integrated education of, for example, pupils with special educational needs in mainstream schools, defunding the Protestant Church because of its social positions, purging public services of people who sign up to a so-called left-wing ideology.

You know, this is the real deal for those interested in right-wing extreme politics.

And in terms of the shift that it shows in Germany overall, do we read anything into it in the broader German political sense?