"Illner" -Talk to Hartz IV: Invitation to excite

Whether the abolition of Hartz IV "good for the country or just for the SPD" would be, Maybrit Illner wanted to know in their talk round. A question in which there is a hidden thesis - that the abolition would be good, at least for the SPD.

After the discussion one can say: there could be something to it.

Even if former SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would be right with his statement in the SPIEGEL, party leader Andrea Nahles would not even claim that she understands something of economics (Nahles said Illner to "nothing at all", with which she said enough): From attention economy obviously she understands something. The SPD has set the theme of the days. And since the SPD chairman came even like in the studio to pick up the flowers.

Her party appeared on "Maybrit Illner" as a source of ideas taken seriously by the competition - which was not always taken for granted in talk shows. Anyway, it's been a while since the SPD was pissed off in a TV discussion, not only by the Left Party, which was represented here by party leader Katja Kipping. No, at Illner also made FDP leader Christian Lindner, who last preferred the Greens pulled into the ring, in the profile sharpening of the comrades.

FDP leader Lindner accepts the invitation

It was about the new labor market paper of the Social Democrats. Unemployment benefit I should therefore be up to three years, much longer than before, coupled with continuing education. Long-term unemployed people should receive a so-called citizen's allowance instead of Hartz IV; A means test would take place later.

It was "not a revolutionary concept," said SPIEGEL author Markus Feldenkirchen, who was invited as one of two journalists in addition to "world" party reporter Robin Alexander. Hartz IV would not be completely withdrawn. But the much and sometimes rightly criticized sanction system would be mitigated. Alexander defended Hartz IV as the state's response to poverty. However, Feldenkirchen said: "It does not matter whether the plans of the SPD are good or not - it is now that Mr. Christian Lindner can get really upset about the SPD again."

Lindner did that. There is no mass unemployment, but a shortage of skilled workers, he said, and the answer to that is loud education. The danger of "descending is massively overestimated and people are being sought." He spoke of a policy of fear-making and complained that "for years" is only talked about "edges of society". Instead, one has to think of the center, he said, bending the world slightly self-consciously until it fits in with his argument: those who "bought yellow vests in France".

Nahles is enough a simple gimmick

For Katja Kipping, criticizing the middle term of the FDP leader was, of course, one of her easier exercises: Lindner spoke of middle, but mine heirs, she said. Kipping would not be a proper left-wing boss, she would not find the SPD much too lax, above all. The bottom line is that their concept of fighting poverty does not go far enough, she said. She complained that there were millions of poor children in the Hartz IV system. What Nahles just smiled away: In her paper, so there is a poverty-proof child protection.

The position of the SPD chairman was the easiest one that evening. The discussion revolved around their suggestions - the others could only react and vary their known standards. Nahles, by and large, was a simple gimmick to work almost like a visionary on her way back to the future for an hour. What her party is presenting here, she said, is a "social-democratic overall concept". To develop such a one had long failed, it was "but core business of the SPD".

So the trick was that she said the Social Democrats were going to make social democratic politics now. Something so crazy had not been heard for a long time. And so even the financing argument could not prevent Nahles' points victory this evening. Dead spots, schools, potholes, there's so much money needed, Lindner said, but instead it's being spent on "old politics." Nahles did not even unpack the calculator. If Social Democrats "burn for something, then in social and labor policy to be up to date," she said. There is money, you just have to think about what you use it for. In short: Social Democrats would tend to spend it on social democratic politics.

May the voter decide. Who should remember - which is part of the master plan in this election year 2019 - what the SPD once stood for.

Once, on a criticism of Robin Alexander, Nahles defiantly said: "We're still alive." Presumably, the sentence is not an election campaign slogan. But the evening at Maybrit Illner he summed up quite well.