First the facts, then the morals

“Why is it that politics so readily follows moods and too seldom reality? What are the obstacles to fact-based debate and decision-making?”

In Brussels or Berlin, decisions are often made that have little to do with local political reality. Boris Palmer, Lord Mayor of Tübingen for twelve years, uses many concrete examples – from housing shortages to air pollution control, from the energy revolution to the German security mania, from crime to climate change – to show why wishful thinking, rather than an analysis of the facts, so often reigns in politics today. At the same time, it offers suggestions on how reality can once again become the basis for political action. The pamphlet of a passionate Green who bases his actions on reality.

Boris Palmer, born in 1972, was elected Lord Mayor of Tübingen in 2007 at the age of 34 – and confirmed in office for another eight years in 2014 with 61.7 percent of the vote. In 2017 his book Wir können nicht allen helfen (We can’t help everyone) was published, which became a bestseller.