Germany’s SPD climbs in polls after welfare rethink

BERLIN: Support for Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) has hit its highest level in almost six months, a poll showed on Sunday, a week after the centre-left party outlined new welfare plans aimed at winning back working class voters.

Ahead of European elections in May and four regional votes this year, the Emnid poll for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper put support for the SPD, which shares power with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, on 19 per cent, up 2 points from a week ago. That was the highest level since the start of September and put them in second place for the first time since October, above the environmentalist Greens who dropped 2 points to 15 per cent.

Merkel’s conservative bloc was unchanged on 30 per cent. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) was also unchanged, at 13 per cent.

The poll offers a rare sign of hope for the SPD after it in 2017 suffered its worst federal election performance since 1947. It subsequently lost even more ground largely because it agreed to share power again with Merkel, say experts.

It hit a low of 14 per cent in an Emnid poll in November.

In an effort to win back traditional supporters angry about compromises made with the conservatives in government, the SPD last week unveiled plans to make unemployment benefits and pensions more generous. KNIFE ATTACK ON WOMAN Police have arrested a suspect following a knife attack on a woman in the southern German city of Nuremberg.

The 25-year-old man is suspected of having stabbed the 21-year-old woman with a knife several times in the upper body early on Sunday morning, the police said.

She was taken to hospital with serious injuries.

For tactical reasons, the investigators did not initially want to reveal how they had tracked down the man, originally from Iraq.

Another woman accompanying the victim had been able to provide clues to the police shortly after the crime, a spokesman said.

The officials were unable to clarify the suspect’s residence status by the early afternoon.