The new acting general secretary of Germany’s governing Social Democrats (SPD), Matthias Miersch, has urged his party to stick more closely to its own priorities to make it stand out from its coalition partners and the opposition, with general elections less than a year away. Miersch was appointed the SPD acting general secretary on Monday, after his predecessor Kevin Kühnert unexpectedly resigned for health reasons. The SPD, also the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, is in coalition with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), but the centre-left alliance has been plagued by in-f…