What is Angela Merkel doing? Of course, law-and-order policies in Berlin, like other Länder, do not fall within her remit. On a national level her government has been active in combating far-Right tendencies, for example by continuing to push for a ban on the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. However, if she wants to win the next election in a country that already regards the capital suspiciously as a sponge for federal subsidies and a stain on the spotless reputation of the prosperous regions in the south, she ought to be concerned that the face of Berlin remains appealingly gloomy rather than becoming downright ugly.