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Sunday, July 24, 2005
Social Democrats on the down and out
Socialism, it just isn't winning anywhere at the moment, not even in Sweden. The parallels with NZ are quite remarkable sometimes (Helen is even reputed to speak Swedish, or so I have heard). Sweden's election is still a year away, but at least things are looking rosey.
A recent poll indicated that 40% of Swede's between the ages of 18 and 84 think that the Social Democrats are doing a bad job. Worse, among those saying that they are "social democratic sympathisers" only 50% say the government is doing a good job.
Why? Numerous scandals, harsh criticism of the way the govt totally buggared up the tsunami emergency and the inability to create new jobs despite good business performance.
37% of Swede's think that the opposition would do a better job, which is remarkable for a country where you sometimes wonder if there is a gene for blind adherence to dopey political ideologies.
But there is bad news for the opposition! Fully 20% say that they would do a worse job than the Social Democrats. That is bad news? Oh wait, every major daily loves the govt.
Does all this sound like some other little country you know and love? Sweden's PM (Persson) is also a patronising "dear leader", just like aunty Helen.
Seems to me sometimes that there is about to be a major failure of social democratic governments. Sweden doesn't even have "Iraq" to try and bash the opposition with, not that it has worked anywhere else anyway. OK apart from Spain, but they are virtually French now anyway.
A recent poll indicated that 40% of Swede's between the ages of 18 and 84 think that the Social Democrats are doing a bad job. Worse, among those saying that they are "social democratic sympathisers" only 50% say the government is doing a good job.
Why? Numerous scandals, harsh criticism of the way the govt totally buggared up the tsunami emergency and the inability to create new jobs despite good business performance.
37% of Swede's think that the opposition would do a better job, which is remarkable for a country where you sometimes wonder if there is a gene for blind adherence to dopey political ideologies.
But there is bad news for the opposition! Fully 20% say that they would do a worse job than the Social Democrats. That is bad news? Oh wait, every major daily loves the govt.
Does all this sound like some other little country you know and love? Sweden's PM (Persson) is also a patronising "dear leader", just like aunty Helen.
Seems to me sometimes that there is about to be a major failure of social democratic governments. Sweden doesn't even have "Iraq" to try and bash the opposition with, not that it has worked anywhere else anyway. OK apart from Spain, but they are virtually French now anyway.
2 Comments:
Problem is, this being Europe, the other side are probably socialists as well.
I think you might be onto something here. Swedes have good business sense (so far as generalisations go) and I've often thought that economic liberalisation to reduce tax burdens in particular is something that the Swedes may adopt long before the rest of Europe. An understanding of how well this is working for some of the Baltic states probably doesn't hurt either. Also, because Swedes (and Scandinavians generally) mostly have fluent English, they are able to join in the debates about such things in the mostly liberal economic Anglo countries, even if they have little in the way of economic training.
The media is a big problem, but hopefully the Internet can overcome some of this. You can see I have high hopes for Sverige. Best of luck with that.
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