New Leader and policies
Labour can take a modest consolation from the fact that “Yo Blair”, who, in the words of Maureen Dowd, hovers around Bush with the eager-to-please manner of oan abused wife, at least appears as a kind of JFK figure for one electorate, that of Sweden. As a small country, Sweden is ahead of the UK in the policy innovation curve, but the system does not appear to throw up great leaders.
Swedish social democracy is widely admired without the movement having any globally famous figureheads since Olof Palme was assassinated 20 years ago – which is a reason why Europe’s most hegemonic ruling movement, is facing its closest contest in a generation in Septeber’s general election: the latest polls put the opposition Alliance bloc, consisting of agrarians, conservatives, Christian democrats and liberals, at 52-48.
Goran Persson, the social democrats’ prime minister since 1996, is regarded as competent but not very charismatic. An excellent orator, a big man in all senses, he has been in power for a long time, 11 years.
Opinion formers haven’t talked of a successor to Perssion, this might be thought strange. Type in “departure” and “Persson” into the biggest newspaper archives and you get about three articles in the last 18months that even address the question. Perhaps it is
because the alternatives are so unappealing that no commentator wants to bring the events to pass by starting a debate on the succession question. Margot Wallstrom, the communications commissioner, is by far the most popular candidate but she has said no: she is on the right wing of the party, and doesn’t want to face media scrutiny of her Euro-federalism.
e alternatives are: the finance minister, Par Nuder, who is on top of his brief, but regarded as an egocentric, competent technocrat. Thomas Bodstrom, the justice minister, is regarded as opportunist eye candy
Vote one, get another – get one of these guys. No thanks. Few think Persson will serve another full term.
So what about Fredrik Reinfeldt, 41, leader of the biggest opposition bloc party, the moderates – formerly the Right party
One rare Q&A reveals that Reinfeldt likes Lord of the Rings; One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest, Swedish country music. He collects stamps. In the photo he is pear-shaped, dumpy, has cocker spaniel eyes, sits on his children’s swing, fashionably shaven headed which makes him look a bit younger than he is. Could have been a male nurse; probably bullied as a child; everyone’s designated driver, everyone’s Bob.
Policywise, he has turned the party more leftwards than it was under the great Carl Bildt, his predecessor.In fact with two centrist parties standing foursquare, commentators have list each leader’s policy strengths. .
Persson is regarded as stronger on healthcare; health outcomes remain the best in the world; and a new care guarantee has just been introduced to allow treatment anywhere in the country or even abroad if it cannot be done locally in three months.
Persson also leads on foreign policy. The Swedish papers make much of the fact that he often pops over to Downing Street to administer TLC to Tony. He is one of the EU’s longest serving leaders, and knows the Brussels process inside out
Reinfeldt is not conspicuously international. He comes across as a bit eurosceptic – unlike Carl Bildt, the previous moderate PM and second most famous Swede on the Brussels scene. This gives him a certain appeal with the electorate, who feel Bildt sold them a bum deal on the EU. But among those in the know there is the fear he won’t improve Sweden’s low profile in Brussels to compensate for the fact that Persson offers expertise here and now. Even if his euroscepticism is just a show, it will take him a while to build contacts; he doesn’t know anyone in Labour, no equivalent relationship between Swedish moderates and the Tories; since Swedes don’t develop contacts in Europe outside Scandinavia and the British isles this is a bit of problem.
Reinfeldt’s relationship with Bildt would make an interesting study. Bildt was a strong, internationalist leader; his big achievement was to bring Sweden into Europe; after losing power he threw himself into the Balkan situation as the EU’s peace representative; he lost interest in domestic politics, and didn’t fight very hard and lost the 1998 election, On his departure, he left behind a grouping of callow market fundamentalist dauphins, little baby Bildts, no one really connected to the Swedish population; and it was not surprising that it scored its worst ever result in 2002 under its equivalent of Duncan Smith, Bosse Lundgren. Reinfeldt has done a lot by bringing the moderates from a 15 percent party back to a 30 percent party. It is well known he feels that Bildt turned into a vehicle for pushing Sweden into Europe; and that the party was centred too much on himself.
Part of his efforts to change the party’s austere neo-liberal image, as a party full of people with Asperger’s syndrome, was to say that no one should root around in the moderate party “box” for their favourite tax cuts. But it will always struggle to shake off the image as the party of business; Sweden has the heaviest unionisation rates in the world. Tax is another tick for Persson.
Reinfeldt has some nice proposals for schools; but then there is a trio is linked issues where he really scores over Persson, according to Expressen’s political editor Anders Jonsson. Persson has really failed on criminality. Rapes in certain parts of the country are up 40 percent on the last year alone; violent crime is about 30 percent on the last five years. Although Sweden’s economy has not done so well since the IT bubble six years ago, with low interest rates and low inflation, hidden unemployment could be as much as 12 – 13% if you include those on study schemes and those who don’t have the energy to sign up according to political journalist Anders Jonsson. Both these issues are discussed and connected to the third big issue, which is barely mentioned: immigration.
Sweden is now the great immigrant country of Europe – 13 percent foreign born, far more than the UK, Finland or Denmark on par with France. About a quarter of the population is of foreign, usually Muslim, stock. And it never had any colonies.
How is Reinfeldt dealing with this? This is very interesting, because it could be the clincher in the election. No doubt the Swedish right has looked at neighbouring Norway and Denmark, where only those parties that have trimmed their sails to the pervasive sense of threat from the Muslim world have flourished. An astonishing fifty percent of the Danish electorate voted for parties hostile to immigration; Sweden’s different political culture, which places less importance on liberal openness to discuss solutions without fear of censorship; more on woolly elitist tolerance. But there are signs that the white working class are every bit as fed up with the lack of integration – the soaring social security bills and crime rates – as their Danish counterparts. The working class are the key social democratic constituency.
Expect them to tougher then, on this issue, than the social democrats.
So here we are, let's see how the election pans out.
