German opposition leader Friedrich Merz has called for snap elections as early as January following the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s government, as he warned that the country could not risk a long period of political uncertainty.

The head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union on Thursday rejected the timetable set out by the German chancellor after he broke up the governing coalition — a move that marked the climax of a long-running row over how to boost growth and plunged Europe’s largest economy into political turmoil.

Merz heaped pressure on Scholz, saying there was “no reason” to wait until January 15 to table a confidence vote in the Bundestag — which meant that the earliest the snap poll could be held was March. His call was echoed by leading business figures who warned of the need for urgent action to revive the German economy.

The opposition leader said his parliamentary group, which includes the CDU’s Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union, had unanimously agreed to tell Scholz to hold a confidence vote “immediately, at the start of next week at the latest”. That would allow elections to be held in the second half of January.

Scholz said that he wanted to work together with the CDU to push through measures to support the economy. According to a CDU official, the chancellor told Merz during a 25-minute meeting on Thursday that he aimed to stick to his proposed timetable.

But Merz said before the meeting: “We simply cannot afford to have a government with no majority in Germany over several months,” followed by a months-long election campaign and weeks of coalition building. “Things have got to happen quickly.”

Leading business figures also warned of the dangers of more uncertainty. “In view of the global political situation and the negative developments in the German economy, we need a new, effective government with its own parliamentary majority as soon as possible,” said Siegfried Russwurm, head of Germany’s main business lobby, the BDI.

Christian Sewing, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, warned that every month of inaction risked causing “a year of missing growth”.

“Germany is facing major economic challenges,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “That is why we can no longer afford to stand still.”

German output is expected to shrink for the second year running in 2024 amid deep problems in the car industry and the chemicals and engineering sectors. Germany’s woes risk being compounded by the re-election of Donald Trump, who has vowed to pursue protectionist policies that would strike a heavy blow to European exports.

Robert Habeck, Scholz’s Green vice-chancellor, warned on Thursday that new elections would not necessarily end the country’s political instability given the surge in support for fringe parties in recent regional elections.

He pointed to the eastern state of Saxony, where efforts to form a three-way coalition between the CDU, the Social Democrats (SPD) and far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) collapsed on Wednesday.

He insisted that the remaining SPD-Greens minority government would keep making decisions, though he conceded that he did not expect a “great willingness to help” from opposition parties on passing legislation, including on the 2025 budget.

Germany’s long-term borrowing costs rose to their highest level since July following the collapse of the coalition, as investors priced in the possibility of more German borrowing after Scholz sacked his hawkish finance minister Christian Lindner. The 10-year government bond yield was up 0.07 percentage points to 2.46 per cent.

As European capitals were left stunned by the collapse of Scholz’s coalition just hours after the US election result, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte voiced confidence that Berlin would “fulfil its obligations” on defence and foreign policy. Germany is the second-largest provider of military aid to Ukraine after the US. “I am not worried about that,” said Rutte as he arrived at a meeting of European leaders in Budapest.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, a former German defence minister, said the government crisis was “for Germany to discuss”.

Following the sacking of Lindner late on Wednesday, German officials announced he would be succeeded as finance minister by Jörg Kukies, the chancellor’s closest economic adviser for the past six years.

Scholz said he fired Lindner, head of the liberal Free Democrats, after he refused to suspend Germany’s “debt brake”, its constitutionally anchored cap on new borrowing, in order to increase support for Ukraine as it battles Russian aggression.

Lindner, a fiscal hawk, said altering the debt brake would amount to “violating my oath of office”.

In an emotional speech on Thursday, Lindner said he “suffered” during his three years in Scholz’s three-way “traffic-light” coalition, accusing the chancellor of being unwilling to compromise.

In a sign of divisions within the FDP, transport minister Volker Wissing unexpectedly announced that he would resign his party membership in order to remain in his post.

Additional reporting by Raphael Minder in Warsaw and Ian Smith in London

THOUSANDS of households are being handed energy saving gadgets to help slash their energy bills by up to £200.

Hard-up residents in one council area in England are being gifted the “Warm Home Packs” this winter.

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The packs come with energy-saving devices in them such as LED light bulbs, radiator foil and draught-excluding tape.

Wandworth Council says the packs could help residents save up to £200 on their energy bills.

The local authority has been distributing the packs since last week but you can still pick yours up if you haven’t got one yet.

The London council recently wrote letters to eligible residents and invited them to pick up their packs at the town hall.

Those who have received a letter but haven’t collected their packs yet can pick them up from four locations.

These are: Wandsworth Town Hall Reception, Battersea Library, Tooting Library and Roehampton Library.

You should qualify for one of the packs if your household has a combined annual income of up to £40,000 and an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating between D and G.

An EPC is a report which reveals how energy efficient your property is and can be booked via the Government’s website.

You can also find out what the EPC of your home via gov.uk.

If you haven’t received a letter from Wandsworth Council and think you are eligible for a Warm Home Pack, you should speak to staff at one of the four collection hubs mentioned above.

Cllr Judi Gasser, cabinet member for environment, said: “We know that warm homes and sustainability come hand in hand.

“These Warm Home Packs play the vital double role of keeping more money in our residents’ pockets this winter, as well as reducing the carbon footprint of individual homes by capturing energy that would otherwise be lost.”

Help you can get with energy bills if you don’t live in Wandsworth

Residents who live outside Wandsworth might be able to get help with their energy bills through a number of avenues.

Household Support Fund

You may qualify for energy vouchers, or free money which can be put towards energy bills via the Household Support Fund.

The giant £421million pot of cash has been shared between councils in England who are in the process of allocating their portion.

Each local authority sets its own eligibility criteria which means what you are entitled to will depend on where you live.

However, most councils are making direct bank transfers or handing out energy or supermarket vouchers to those who are on a low income, benefits or vulnerable.

The best thing to do if you think you might be eligible for help is contact your local council.

You can find what council area you fall under by using the Government’s “find your local council” tool via gov.uk.

Energy Company Obligation

You might be able to get help paying for insulation or a new more energy-efficient boiler, which in turn will drive down your energy bills, through the Energy Company Obligation.

You might even be able to get them for free depending on your circumstances.

It’s worth noting though that you are only eligible for ECO if you are on benefits, classed as vulnerable or have a home with a low EPC.

Bear in mind, help is offered on a case-by-case basis and you may have to fund part of the works done to your home.

Energy company grant schemes

A number of energy companies hand out grants to customers who are struggling to keep up with their energy bills.

For example, British Gas recently opened its Energy Support Fund offering cash-strapped families up to £2,000 in free money.

Octopus Energy also offers direct cash grants to customers struggling to cover the cost of their bills via its Octo Assist fund.

The firm also carries out home visits to discuss how households can reduce their usage and gives out free electric blankets.

You can read more on what some of the other firms do in our piece here.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

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BT has said it will be hit by an approximate £100mn increase in costs after the UK Budget while the telecoms group also cut its revenue guidance.

Chief executive Allison Kirkby, who is attempting to make savings as part of turnaround efforts, said the near-£100mn rise in the next fiscal year was predominantly related to the reduced threshold and increased rate of employer contributions for national insurance that were announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves last week.

Kirkby described it as “just a new inflationary pressure that we need to suffer in our business”, adding that the FTSE 100 company intended to offset all of it with “multiple levers” including accelerating its cost transformation plans, pursuing further workforce productivity measures and looking at the pricing of its products and services. She did not specify whether this meant price rises for consumers.

Kirkby told the Financial Times that she estimated the changes to NI accounted for about 70 to 75 per cent of the total cost increase, with the rest stemming from the rise in the minimum wage.

NI for employers will increase by 1.2 percentage points to 15 per cent from April and that the level at which employers start paying NI for workers will fall from £9,100 to £5,000. It was also announced last week that the national living wage would increase 6.7 per cent to £12.21 an hour from April.

BT employed 71,400 staff in the UK at the end of March.

Her comments came as BT on Thursday lowered its revenue outlook for the 2025 financial year to a decline of 1 to 2 per cent, down from previous guidance of adjusted revenue growth of up to 1 per cent.

It said the move primarily reflected “weaker non-UK trading including reduced low-margin kit sales, along with a softer environment in [the] corporate and public sector”.

Shares in BT were down 7.8 per cent to 131p in morning trading.

The rest of the company’s outlook was reiterated as it also announced an interim dividend of 2.4p per share.

BT reported a 3 per cent decline in adjusted revenue to £5.09bn and relatively flat adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of £2.07bn in the second quarter, compared with the same period last year.

During the group’s annual results in May Kirkby had announced an additional £3bn cost-savings programme by the end of its 2029 financial year, after completing a previous £3bn cost-savings target, and BT reported it had achieved £433mn in gross annualised cost savings during the first half of the year.

The group reported 181,000 further broadband line losses in its second quarter. It is facing competition from dozens of alternative network providers — or “altnets” — and Virgin Media O2 in the roll out of full-fibre broadband across the country.

BT’s reported pre-tax profit dropped 10 per cent to £967mn for the six months to 30 September compared with the prior year, which it said was primarily due to lower revenue and higher costs. Net debt rose to £20.3bn, from £19.5bn at the end of March.

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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world

Donald Trump will go down in history as a truly historic president. That is not a moral judgment. It is simply an acknowledgment of the scale of his achievement in completely remaking American politics.

Like Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, Trump has not merely won re-election. He has also brought about fundamental shifts in policy, ideology and the political landscape. Unfortunately, he has also brought about a profound change in political norms, by embracing conspiracy theories and refusing to accept that he lost the 2020 presidential election.

The accusation that Trump is a threat to democracy turned out not to be the clinching argument that the Democrats imagined. That could be because Americans simply did not buy the argument. But there is also evidence that there is an appetite for strongman leadership in the US.

A Pew poll taken earlier this year showed that 32 per cent of Americans believe it would be a good idea to have a strong leader who can govern without being constrained by the courts or legislature. Another poll, taken last year, found 38 per cent of Americans and 48 per cent of Republicans thought the country needed a leader who is willing to “break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right”. 

The political instincts that told Trump many Americans might want a strongman leader also emboldened him to break with decades of Republican and Reaganite orthodoxy on a range of issues — from free trade to the defence of democracy around the world. Until Trump came on the scene, it was conventional wisdom that protectionism was an electoral liability — championed only by maverick losers such as Pat Buchanan. Trump, who says tariff is his favourite word, demonstrated that Americans were ready to embrace protectionist policies. The proof of his success in reversing decades of orthodoxy is that the Biden administration did not scrap Trump’s tariffs.

Trump has also broken with the neoconservatives who worshipped the memory of Reagan and championed the promotion of democracy around the world. After decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq this, too, proved to be a shrewd political call. Academic research has shown that parts of the country where military casualties were higher than average were significantly more likely to back Trump.

During the Bush years, it was conventional wisdom that Republicans would lose Hispanic voters if they sounded too hostile to immigration. Trump has demonstrated that this is not true. 

Trump’s ideology is, in some respects, Reaganism in reverse. Whereas Reagan argued for free trade and confrontation with the Soviet Union, Trump stands for protectionism and accommodation with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Reagan’s sunny optimism about the US contrasts with Trump’s bleak pessimism about US decline. And whereas Reagan was correct and courteous in his manners; Trump is vulgar and threatening.

The one Reaganite policy that Trump has consistently championed is a commitment to low taxes and deregulation. Perhaps not coincidentally, this is the element of Reaganism that is most highly prized by the tech and finance grandees who fund political campaigns. 

From his first declaration as a candidate in 2015, Trump defied the norms of political behaviour in ways that led to frequent erroneous predictions that his political career was doomed. He ridiculed and bullied fellow Republicans, mocked the disabled, made gross comments about women and attempted to overturn the result of a presidential election. But none of it was enough to finish him off. In fact, Trump’s taboo-smashing comments may have worked in his favour.

Over the past eight years, Trump has taken over the Grand Old Party — as the Republicans like to style themselves — and turned it into his personal instrument. Those Republicans who could not stomach his policies or his style — people such as Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Liz Cheney — have left politics or been marginalised. Other Republicans who once opposed him have apologised. JD Vance, who will be Trump’s vice-president, once tweeted, “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologise for this man. Lord help us.” He has since apologised — not to the Lord but to Trump. 

Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris will be taken as proof that his Maga agenda has been embraced not just by the Republican party but by the US as a whole. His followers are likely to demand rapid progress on the full slate of Maga policies — whether it is mass deportation of illegal immigrants, tax cuts or the purging of the “deep state”.

Yet while Trump’s political success is undeniable, it would be a mistake to over-interpret his mandate. There is currently a strong mood of anti-incumbency across the west as voters struggle with inflation, immigration and cultural change. That anti-incumbency mood has seen the Conservative party swept out of power in Britain, Emmanuel Macron lose his majority in France and now the collapse of the German government, This is also the third successive US presidential election in which the incumbent party has lost the vote.

Disillusioned American voters have now put their faith in a self-styled strongman leader. Over the next four years, they will discover whether Trump is the answer to their prayers — or a living nightmare.

gideon.rachman@ft.com