Friday, 25 August 2006
Carnival of the Polly-kicking #4: an army of Fiskers
Polly Toynbee is, far and away and without a shadow of a doubt, cyberspace's premiere Fiskee. Some of us are grossly rude about her; others more polite, relatively. But on days such as this, when she returns to her favourite theme - we must be more like Sweden, and only one man from Fife can deliver this Utopia - a veritable peasant's army comes crawling from every shack and hovel to take arms against this dowager Empress of the left-liberal media Establishment.
So the fourth Carnival of the Polly-Kicking takes a slightly different form; this time, thanks to the interactivity of the Guardian's Comment is Free site, it is not just bloggers, but an enraged general public, that stands in a circle round her prone form, putting their size tens in with rare gusto. Here are some highlights from today's edict from on high. If you come across any other examples, please do email me, or stick a link in the comments. Polly in red, fiskers in blue...
Sweden goes to the polls in three weeks - and things look grim for the social-democratic government. With close ties to the prime minister, Goran Persson, Labour now watches with trepidation this contest that uncannily mirrors the current British political scene. The social democrats are five points behind in the polls, with the gap widening: no party has ever made up that distance in the last weeks before a Swedish election. So gloom is settling over the party that has been in power since 1994 - and for most of the past 80 years.
This would be astute psephological analysis if the Social Democrats were indeed five points behind and falling; but slightly less dazzling given that they're three points ahead and rising. Here's Swede Davric, in the comments:
I was out canvassing for the Social Democrats last night, and I can assure Polly that reports of the demise of Göran Persson are somewhat exaggerated. The latest polls that came out yesterday (SKOP) put the government and their allies about 3 points *ahead*, and you could tell this from the response on the streets.
And here's blogger Jon Worth:
The polls do not presently look anywhere near as lousy as Toynbee states - see this from The Local that looks at the latest RUAB poll that gives the left a lead.
Not a terribly encouraging opening. Never mind, Pol. I'm not great with numbers, either. Start again.
Sweden comes near the top of most league tables in public services. Unlike much of Europe, its women are not on strike: they have more babies than most, with the best universal childcare from the age of one in nurseries where half the staff are graduates.
Comments again, this time Persian:
Polly also repeats what seems to be one of her idees fixes, namely that unlike other Europeans, Swedish women have a lot of children. From the Council of Europe's website -Sweden’s “roller-coaster” fertility rate has received international attention. In the 1980s fertility rates grew rapidly and reached 2.14 in 1990 – one of the highest fertility rates in Europe at the time. Since the early 1990s fertility is again declining rapidly. The economic recession, increased unemployment and and less generous family policies were contributing factors. In 1999 the total fertility rate reached an all time low of 1.5 and in 2002 the total fertility rate was 1.65.So probably Polly's not updating her facts. Even if we assume the 2002 number has gone up, these latest mumbers are not high. And also how many of even these births are to immigrant mothers, of which Sweden has many?
Oh well, back to the group fisking. (Group fisking will normally set you back £12.99 at most adult DVD sites, so I'm performing a valuable public service here.)
Sweden gives most in foreign aid (though the Moderates say they'll cut it). With other Nordic countries it has one of the highest levels of public trust - and it tops the international happiness league. But you wouldn't think so from the public's current mood. Anxiety seems to have them by the throat for no obvious reason.
As someone else points out in the comments, even by Polly's standards, to claim that Swedes are the happiest people on Earth and then, almost in the same breath, say that "anxiety seems to have them by the throat" is a dizzying piece of doublethink. But for hard facts we must go to the Wat Tyler of this particular ragtag army of irregulars, Factchecking Pollyanna:
Which international happiness league? Not this one, which asks about "life satisfaction", where it is Switzerland that tops the league table. Not this one, which is the proportion of people saying they are happy less the proportion who say they are unhappy, where it is Iceland which comes out on top. Blanchflower and Oswald's paper "Happiness and the Human Development Index: The Paradox of Australia" (pdf link here) has Mexico in prime position.
Maybe she meant "near the top", and her fingers, slick from the telltale beads of Brown-inspired dew forming inside her, slipped on the keyboard.
At a Global Challenge conference last week in Ostersund, the question was whether the Swedish model could survive globalisation, or would all welfare states be dragged down to the lowest common denominator in a cut-throat race to the bottom? Academics, thinktanks, industrialists and politicians from left and right seemed gripped by existential doubt, though they agreed there was no evidence that Sweden was losing out in the global market: on the contrary, it is a supertanker on the global tide.
Well, an analysis by Nationmaster, the web resource that compiles geographical data from a wide range of sources including the UN and OECD, puts Sweden 19th in a list of 25 selected countries by economic importance, between Switzerland and Thailand. Swedish quality of life is high, there's no doubt about that; but to describe Sweden as an economic "supertanker" is just nonsense. It is, at best, an expensive-looking yacht with a nice shine on those brass rails; pretty to look at, no doubt, but the upkeep is damn pricey, and there aren't nearly as many scantily-clad blondes on board as you might think from the movies.
In discussions it became clear that there is nothing in their high-tax, strong-welfare-state, business-friendly, trade-union model that is threatened by tougher global trade. The same Nordic model that served well in the past still works well in a world where education and intelligence matter most of all. That particular social contract between business and welfare is the magic Nordic model that the European centre-left struggles to copy, a model too for developing countries striving for democracy and capitalism, but not the American way. So why this dangerous spasm?... [blah blah]
... Ask why and familiar human politics emerge. Plain boredom is part of the story. Fifty-seven-year-old Goran Persson has stayed far too long: his party failed to push him in time. Chilly and uncharismatic, after 10 years he is now a severe liability - and "time for a change" is a strong card for any opposition.
Commenter Koolio:
"Chilly and uncharismatic, after 10 years he is now a severe liability", this reads not only as a description of Goran Persson but also of Gordon Brown.
Ooh, she won't like that, Koolio!
For lack of political excitement, government peccadilloes become inflated into "scandals". When hundreds of Swedish holiday-makers drowned in the tsunami, the government was slow to send military planes to collect survivors and may have covered up who was to blame - but that's hardly Watergate. Nor was the "scandal" of a minister using her official credit card to buy a bar of chocolate - but she had to resign. Politics abhors a vacuum and boredom can be toxic.
Forced to resign for buying a chocolate bar? Sounds bizarre. Understandably; it's not true. Back to Factchecking Pollyanna:
The case of the "minister using her official credit card to buy a bar of chocolate", as Polly described it, gets more and more interesting. In a paper written by two academics at Lund University, called "Pack-hunt journalism – ruthless journalism as the norm in the media society" (pdf link here) comes this description of the scandal:This was not about a chocolate bar, however much Mona Sahlin would like it to be. From the same paper referenced above comes this quote:After the Social Democrats’ election victory in 1994 Mona Sahlin re-entered the Government on 7 October, this time as both Deputy Prime-Minister and Minister for Equality. Almost at once she began to use her official credit card for private purposes, first for three cash withdrawals, each of 2000 SEK, then for some clothes purchases and hiring a car, and then again further cash withdrawals. After officials had spoken to her about the matter she promised to put the card away, but she didn’t pay off the outstanding debt, which totalled 9,855 SEK. On 28 December 1994 she again used the card to pay a bill of 9,187 SEK for a hired car. It was not until 6 February that she paid the original 9,855 SEK, while the car-hire bill remained unpaid, and more cash withdrawals were made (Aftonbladet 1995).
On 7 October 1995 Expressen revealed her cash withdrawals. In her defence Sahlin claimed that she had mixed up her cards. The following day she changed her story and instead claimed that it was an advance of salary. The then Prime Minister, Ingvar Carlsson, commented by noting that she had paid the money she owed. Not until 10 October did Sahlin pay the car-hire bill that had been outstanding since 1994. On 12 October it was revealed that she was still using the card, despite her promises not to use it for private purposes (Aftonbladet 1995). On the following four days all the Swedish daily and evening papers, as well as the radio and TV channels were filled to the brim with revelations about Sahlin’s various expenses and payment difficulties, including among other things that she had not paid a school bill on time. The leader columns of the Social Democratic papers criticised her, saying that she had damaged the Party.
On 16 October 1995 Mona Sahlin held a press conference [...] She made a long statement in which she accused the journalists of a witch-hunt against her. “You take pictures through the kitchen window and say she is hiding indoors […]You pry into the bedrooms with your tele-lenses. I feel dirty but I wonder how you feel, you who have been part of what I am describing […]” (Sahlin 1996: 295). [...]
At the same time the Public Prosecutor was making preliminary enquiries. And in the speculations about who should succeed Ingvar Carlsson, Mona Sahlin became more and more of an outsider. To get as far away as possible from all this fuss, she booked a holiday for herself and her family. In Mauritius. To be able to keep in touch with the Ministry, she took her secretary with her – whose stay was paid from public funds. When she came home her holiday destination was the main subject in all the headlines. In its leader on 6 November the evening paper Expressen wrote:
"The journey to Mauritius was for many yet another proof that the political classes now consider themselves above the people they represent. Not only is Sahlin behindhand in paying her bills at the play-school, while supplementing her pay with public funds, but she goes off to the millionaires’ island too. And she even has the cheek to take her secretary with her at the tax-payers’ expense."
On 10 November the pressure became too much and Mona Sahlin resigned. The Public Prosecutor then dropped his enquiry and she decided to give a first press conference. Erik Fichtelius was at the microphone. He asked whether she had now paid all her play-school bills. Yes, I think so, she replied. She thought wrong. Fichtelius said he had just checked up, and it seemed that there was still an unpaid school bill, and a reminder was on its way. Once again other media started to investigate, but eventually the media coverage died down. She returned to Government three years later and her political career seemed to pick up speed again. There the journalistic pack-hunt against Mona Sahlin might have ended. But history repeats itself.
In November 1999 it emerged that Mona Sahlin had received 98 parking-tickets in two years, of which 32 had gone to the public Debt Collector. Once again the pack-hunt set off. Scarcely a year later, in August 2000, came the next blow – the revelation that her file had been noted because she was three months late in paying a supplementary tax bill of 40,000 SEK. For Sahlin, who had launched a Social Democratic campaign under the motto “It’s great to pay taxe [sic]!”, this was yet another reminder that she didn’t practise what she preached. In case she had forgotten it, the media were only too ready to refresh her memory. In 2002 came the next media posse, when it was discovered that a double ban had been put on Sahlin’s Volvo, because she had neither put it in for its MOT test nor paid the annual vehicle tax (Molin 2002). In contrast to the first pack-hunt, however, none of the subsequent ones led to her resignation.
She [Mona Sahlin] explained at a press conference long after the matter had been discovered that she had occasionally bought a Toblerone on her official credit card.
I think this is known as "playing it down". It's a shame to see the gullible buying the line.
Whatever remaining credibility Polly may have had is clearly in tatters; a financial scandal from 1995 recycled as "minister forced to resign over chocolate bar" is jaw-droppingly slack journalism. Two possibilities; first, she did not know her anecdote was both grotesquely inaccurate and eleven years old; second, she did know, but simply doesn't give a shit about misleading her readers. In neither scenario does she emerge with much credit.
The warning for Labour here is loud and clear. Even if Gordon Brown's economy thrives better than he dared hope, even if almost every public service is improving, even if most people are better off and secure in their jobs, with poor children better off too - that's still not enough. Ungrateful perhaps, but people want something more from politics - circuses as well as bread.
These are "even ifs" of a gargantuan nature. The economy's doing fine, but is it really "thriving better than he dared hope"? Are public services improving? Are most people more secure in their jobs? Otherone, again in the comments:
Even if Gordon Brown's economy thrives better than he dared hope, even if almost every public service is improving, even if most people are better off and secure in their jobs' ....etc. I wonder if it has escpaed your attention that if we are so much better off why are as a nation we getting into deeper and deeper debt - government, indvidual household and corporate. The figure for our debt saturated society which now exceeds £1.1 trillion is now greater than annualised GDP. The corollary of this has been the inexorable rise in personal bankruptcies and insolvencies which of course are expected to get worse. Funny sort of prosperity this. I also wonder why, if people are more secure in their jobs, unemployment has risen every month since January 2005 and now stands at 1.7 million. And then of course there is the pensions time bomb and the obscene level of wealth and income inequality to be considered.Frankly, you seem to live in a make believe world based upon the somewhat naive acceptance of official statistics. If I were a psychiatrist I would suggest that you are 'in denial' about new Labour in general and Gordon Brown in particular.
As if on cue, the rest of the article is a paean to the Cyclops King, her Norse God in shining, taxpayer-funded armour.
Sweden is a warning to Brown. It will not be enough to copy Tony Blair in all things...[boring shit snipped]
... Goran Persson risks losing power while steadily growing one of the most successful societies the world has known. That is a warning to Brown that he faces the same fate unless he makes a radical break with the past.
If I take this to mean that Gordon, like Goran, has created "one of the most successful societies the world has known", you'll have to excuse me, because I've just soiled myself with laughter.
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If we want to be like Sweden I'd suggest we engage in full scale free trade (it was that which made Sweden rich in the first place- one of the richest countries in the world infact) and then avoid having wars. Even 80 years of social democrat rule hasn't managed to destroy everything.
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