SWEDEN - September 14, 2014 - GUIDE and THREAD

[Tayya]

Good question.

Tayya's analysis of Swedish politics 2010-2014

To recap what happened during the term, the Social Democrats emerged from losing their second election in a row for the first time since the Stone Age in shock and desperately trying to find a new leader after the deeply flawed Mona Sahlin, tainted by old scandals, incompetence, failing to manage a three-party coalition and having an extremely annoying voice.

With the arrival of Helle Thorning-Schmidt as the leader of the Danish Social Democrats, Sweden had become the only Nordic country left without ever having had a female major party leader. Anna Lindh, Social Democratic Minister of Foreign Affairs, was bound to succeed Göran Persson in 2004 but was stabbed to death by a loon while shopping just before the Euro referendum in the fall of 2003. (Unlike the murder of Olof Palme, the perpetrator was caught on camera and was caught.) For a party that likes gender equality in a country that likes gender equality, it was becoming embarrassing and voices inside the party promised to veto any new party leader that wasn't a woman.

So, for reasons that can be debated but ultimately justified by the logic of the involved parties, the number of potential candidates grew smaller. Thanks to the principle of equality reaching into the cabinet, there had been several female Social Democratic cabinet members, but most were too controversial, had no profile and no internal support or weren't interested (such as European Commissioner Margot Wallström, Minister of Foreign Aid Carin Jämtin and Minister of Infrastructure Ulrica Messing).

The party was left with Sahlin, who initially led the government big thanks to general ineptness such as the Minister of Trade resigning after 8 days due to being an upper class douchebag who avoided taxes and unpopular reforms on unemployment benefits. However, after she was forced by party bosses to accept the Left Party into a pre-election coalition in order to dilute the influence of the party's right wing and the Greens which wasn't exactly showing strong leadership as well as a botched budget alternative presented in the spring of 2010, the right-wing Alliance managed to eke out a win with a bigger margin than 2006 (but losing their majority thanks to the Sweden Democrats entering the Riksdag).

So, we're back to where we were in the beginning of this post - the Social Democrats finding a new leader. Again, no one stepped up, even though the calls for a woman somehow had disappeared - being leader of a diverse party and becoming the candidate for Prime Minister is an intense job, and again, few could unite the party. The result was Håkan Juholt.

Håkan Juholt wasn't exactly a backbencher, being Chairman of the Riksdag's Committee on Defense, but he wasn't known to most people. He was charismatic, folksy as f*** and somewhat left-populist, trying to make child poverty an election issue, but also turned out to be completely out of his depth - flip-flopping thrice on an intervention in Libya and making a huge gaffe at the major defense politics conference in Sweden (his area of expertise!). His choice for Spokesman for Financial Affairs, Tommy Waidelich, was also bizarrely incompetent.

He was finally brought down by a pseudo-scandal involving his Riksdag-provided apartment and kinda maybe having taken out too much allowance for it - the icing on the cake, especially as intra-party resentments were being awakened. Juholt resigned after 10 months in office at a press conference in a shopping center in his home town of Oskarshamn.

At its nadir, the Social Democrats had only 25% in the polls, trailing the Moderates by 10 points. When Juholt resigned, the party board managed to convince the head of the Metalworkers' Union Stefan Löfven to become party leader.

Löfven turned out to be stable, moderate and sane, appealing to the median voter, but also a man of the people from the countryside and not a scandal-ridden weak aging granola girl who speaks like a kindergarten teacher in slow-motion nor a klutz surrounded by idiots. This alone brought the Social Democrats back into the lead.

Personally, I think that Reinfeldt's realignment is partly overstated - many Swedes were still closer to the Social Democrats, but were disillusioned by the Persson cabinet, didn't want to vote for Sahlin or the Left Party and detested the idea of Håkan Juholt as Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Reinfeldt's and his cabinet's general competence kept the government alive, well and stable. When the incumbents had a credible opposition, they couldn't come up with new ideas and started to lose control of the situation, especially thanks to the minor parties becoming increasingly irrelevant. At the same time, a couple of events (a pseudo-scandal concerning a private elderly care provider and a disastrous PISA score) brought an increasing sense of malaise, especially as unemployment is still very high (above 8%).

Fredrik Reinfeldt and Anders Borg aren't enough anymore to counter all these factors working against them. Their last chance is the presentation of the spring budget and shadow budgets in May, which also hosts the EP election. If they still trail by over 10% in the summer, it's very hard to see how they can win.

What would happen then? That's for another post.

[Franknburger]

Personally, I think that Reinfeldt's realignment is partly overstated - many Swedes were still closer to the Social Democrats, but were disillusioned by the Persson cabinet, didn't want to vote for Sahlin or the Left Party and detested the idea of Håkan Juholt as Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Reinfeldt's and his cabinet's general competence kept the government alive, well and stable. When the incumbents had a credible opposition, they couldn't come up with new ideas and started to lose control of the situation, especially thanks to the minor parties becoming increasingly irrelevant. At the same time, a couple of events (a pseudo-scandal concerning a private elderly care provider and a disastrous PISA score) brought an increasing sense of malaise, especially as unemployment is still very high (above 8%).

Fredrik Reinfeldt and Anders Borg aren't enough anymore to counter all these factors working against them. Their last chance is the presentation of the spring budget and shadow budgets in May, which also hosts the EP election. If they still trail by over 10% in the summer, it's very hard to see how they can win.

What would happen then? That's for another post.

Typically, unemployment above 8% suffices to bring down any government. Dare to elaborate a bit more on the economic situation?

Thanks for this highly informative post. I am looking forward to the next one!

[Tayya]

Personally, I think that Reinfeldt's realignment is partly overstated - many Swedes were still closer to the Social Democrats, but were disillusioned by the Persson cabinet, didn't want to vote for Sahlin or the Left Party and detested the idea of Håkan Juholt as Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Reinfeldt's and his cabinet's general competence kept the government alive, well and stable. When the incumbents had a credible opposition, they couldn't come up with new ideas and started to lose control of the situation, especially thanks to the minor parties becoming increasingly irrelevant. At the same time, a couple of events (a pseudo-scandal concerning a private elderly care provider and a disastrous PISA score) brought an increasing sense of malaise, especially as unemployment is still very high (above 8%).

Fredrik Reinfeldt and Anders Borg aren't enough anymore to counter all these factors working against them. Their last chance is the presentation of the spring budget and shadow budgets in May, which also hosts the EP election. If they still trail by over 10% in the summer, it's very hard to see how they can win.

What would happen then? That's for another post.

Typically, unemployment above 8% suffices to bring down any government. Dare to elaborate a bit more on the economic situation?

Thanks for this highly informative post. I am looking forward to the next one!

I'm not an economist, but part of it is due to the usual factors (heavy industry closing down, entry-level jobs disappearing) but it's also due to the Public Employment Service being useless and not working as well as schools not doing enough to facilitate employment.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Tayya's analysis is very good. Though I don't agree about people in general being closer to the Social Democrats and just going centre-right because of dislike for Persson/Sahlin/Juholt, that would suggest swing-voters have consistent political values, while the truth is they're about as consistent as jelly.

I'd also like to add that one of the problems the Alliance is currently having is their general arrogance and laziness towards the current electoral winds. Back in '10 there was a real fighting spirit to turn the popular opinion around, this time they just seem to lean back and expect another huge turn-around happening again, just because it did last time. 

[Tayya]

Tayya's analysis is very good. Though I don't agree about people in general being closer to the Social Democrats and just going centre-right because of dislike for Persson/Sahlin/Juholt, that would suggest swing-voters have consistent political values, while the truth is they're about as consistent as jelly.

I'd also like to add that one of the problems the Alliance is currently having is their general arrogance and laziness towards the current electoral winds. Back in '10 there was a real fighting spirit to turn the popular opinion around, this time they just seem to lean back and expect another huge turn-around happening again, just because it did last time. 

Thanks. I figured that part would be the most controversial, but there definitely is a bunch of voters who could identify with Reinfeldt's "New Workers' Party" and not Bo Lundgren's Moderates Classic. It's as much style as it is substance, of course, if not more.

[Tayya]

A gem I'd like to share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQakZce3GhQ

From Wikipedia:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

"A dynamism of opposites in the earlier so homogenous Swedish society, a surface of friction does appear but this peaceful dynamism of opposites that, in my view, means much to vitalise the Swedish society" - Then-Prime Minister Carl Bildt

"Hello. Now I think that we together in this room should sing "We Shall Overcome"." - Minister of Immigration Birgit Friggebo

"You'll never succeed through shouting." - Then-Prime Minister Carl Bildt

[Lurker]

A gem I'd like to share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQakZce3GhQ

From Wikipedia:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

"A dynamism of opposites in the earlier so homogenous Swedish society, a surface of friction does appear but this peaceful dynamism of opposites that, in my view, means much to vitalise the Swedish society" - Then-Prime Minister Carl Bildt

"Hello. Now I think that we together in this room should sing "We Shall Overcome"." - Minister of Immigration Birgit Friggebo

"You'll never succeed through shouting." - Then-Prime Minister Carl Bildt

The first quote is truly a Bildt classic. Bizarre that he would use such complicated and "heavy" language, particularly when addressing a crowd of immigrants.
 

[Tayya]

It's very strange to see Bildt, usually the one in charge of every situation he puts himself in, so nervous and clearly out of his depth as in the clip. It's clear he doesn't at all know what to do or how to handle the situation.

In other notes, the government today presented a proposal to limit class sizes in schools. A decent proposal, but unfortunately blatantly stolen from the opposition.

[Gustaf]

I honestly find it a bit weird that the government is doing as badly as they are. Yes, they're boring and have no ideas etc. But they did largely implement the platform they got elected on and while the economy isn't great that's mostly due to the financial crisis, Sweden is doing ok in an international perspective.

I'm not thrilled by them and I think the Social Democrats have a good lineup but the landslide loss confuses me, to be honest.

[DL]

I'm not thrilled by them and I think the Social Democrats have a good lineup but the landslide loss confuses me, to be honest.

Maybe its that the Social Democrats are still the "natural party of government" in Sweden and the default option for many voters - the "bourgeois parties" can only win when there is a really good reason NOT to vote SAP - and this year there is no reason not to.

[The Lord Marbury]

I honestly find it a bit weird that the government is doing as badly as they are. Yes, they're boring and have no ideas etc. But they did largely implement the platform they got elected on and while the economy isn't great that's mostly due to the financial crisis, Sweden is doing ok in an international perspective.

I'm not thrilled by them and I think the Social Democrats have a good lineup but the landslide loss confuses me, to be honest.

I don't agree with you that it's very surprising because in an election a lot of focus tends to be placed on what the parties want to do in the next term rather than what they've done, and the Alliance haven't exactly laid out a plan full of fresh and new exciting ideas.
Tax cuts just ain't what they used to be and now polling shows that voters are far more concerned with welfare, education and employment issues where the oppositions agenda is far more popular because they've actually spent time on building up voter confidence now. Gone are the days when the Alliance could just sit back wait for opposition incompetence and Reinfeldt & Borgs personal popularity to carry them to victory.

[Gustaf]

I honestly find it a bit weird that the government is doing as badly as they are. Yes, they're boring and have no ideas etc. But they did largely implement the platform they got elected on and while the economy isn't great that's mostly due to the financial crisis, Sweden is doing ok in an international perspective.

I'm not thrilled by them and I think the Social Democrats have a good lineup but the landslide loss confuses me, to be honest.

I don't agree with you that it's very surprising because in an election a lot of focus tends to be placed on what the parties want to do in the next term rather than what they've done, and the Alliance haven't exactly laid out a plan full of fresh and new exciting ideas.
Tax cuts just ain't what they used to be and now polling shows that voters are far more concerned with welfare, education and employment issues where the oppositions agenda is far more popular because they've actually spent time on building up voter confidence now. Gone are the days when the Alliance could just sit back wait for opposition incompetence and Reinfeldt & Borgs personal popularity to carry them to victory.

That's true, but I'm not clear on what the grand ideas of the opposition are on these issues either?

Problems with employment, welfare and education were present and worsening under the left as well as far as I remember.

The loss I get, but this total meltdown I do find a bit surprising.

[The Lord Marbury]

I honestly find it a bit weird that the government is doing as badly as they are. Yes, they're boring and have no ideas etc. But they did largely implement the platform they got elected on and while the economy isn't great that's mostly due to the financial crisis, Sweden is doing ok in an international perspective.

I'm not thrilled by them and I think the Social Democrats have a good lineup but the landslide loss confuses me, to be honest.

I don't agree with you that it's very surprising because in an election a lot of focus tends to be placed on what the parties want to do in the next term rather than what they've done, and the Alliance haven't exactly laid out a plan full of fresh and new exciting ideas.
Tax cuts just ain't what they used to be and now polling shows that voters are far more concerned with welfare, education and employment issues where the oppositions agenda is far more popular because they've actually spent time on building up voter confidence now. Gone are the days when the Alliance could just sit back wait for opposition incompetence and Reinfeldt & Borgs personal popularity to carry them to victory.

That's true, but I'm not clear on what the grand ideas of the opposition are on these issues either?

Problems with employment, welfare and education were present and worsening under the left as well as far as I remember.

The loss I get, but this total meltdown I do find a bit surprising.

Well talking about limiting (or completely banning) profiteering in welfare is a popular one, with little doubt of it being one of the main reasons why the Left Party has been going so strong lately. Then there's also reducing class sizes in schools (as recently copied by the Alliance), increased wages for teachers, larger intake of students at the universities, getting rid of involuntary part-time in welfare professions, etc.

In regards to employment you have the 90-day guarantee for youth unemployed and the education contract which enables young people without a gymnasium-level education to combine work and education.
You've also got improved unemployment insurance which in addition to not forcing people into poverty or relying on relatives it maintains consumption and gives the economy a nice boost as research shows that less well off individuals are more likely to spend extra money than save it. Various necessary infrastructure investments such as the North Bothnia Line will also result in more jobs and growth.

Indeed however I at least believe that a lot of the problems with education and welfare under S had their roots in the 1990s economic crisis and resulting cutbacks, the institution of New Public Management in the public sphere, free school choice and resulting segregation, the transfer of education responsibilities to the municipalities (Göran Persson's worst move ever!) and so forth. It's also worth noting that unemployment had in fact been continually dropping for several straight months before the Alliance took power.

And I dunno, some people would find it confusing that the Alliance managed to take power in '06 when the economy was booming and the unemployment was relatively low and going even lower...

[Gustaf]

I honestly find it a bit weird that the government is doing as badly as they are. Yes, they're boring and have no ideas etc. But they did largely implement the platform they got elected on and while the economy isn't great that's mostly due to the financial crisis, Sweden is doing ok in an international perspective.

I'm not thrilled by them and I think the Social Democrats have a good lineup but the landslide loss confuses me, to be honest.

I don't agree with you that it's very surprising because in an election a lot of focus tends to be placed on what the parties want to do in the next term rather than what they've done, and the Alliance haven't exactly laid out a plan full of fresh and new exciting ideas.
Tax cuts just ain't what they used to be and now polling shows that voters are far more concerned with welfare, education and employment issues where the oppositions agenda is far more popular because they've actually spent time on building up voter confidence now. Gone are the days when the Alliance could just sit back wait for opposition incompetence and Reinfeldt & Borgs personal popularity to carry them to victory.

That's true, but I'm not clear on what the grand ideas of the opposition are on these issues either?

Problems with employment, welfare and education were present and worsening under the left as well as far as I remember.

The loss I get, but this total meltdown I do find a bit surprising.

Well talking about limiting (or completely banning) profiteering in welfare is a popular one, with little doubt of it being one of the main reasons why the Left Party has been going so strong lately. Then there's also reducing class sizes in schools (as recently copied by the Alliance), increased wages for teachers, larger intake of students at the universities, getting rid of involuntary part-time in welfare professions, etc.

In regards to employment you have the 90-day guarantee for youth unemployed and the education contract which enables young people without a gymnasium-level education to combine work and education.
You've also got improved unemployment insurance which in addition to not forcing people into poverty or relying on relatives it maintains consumption and gives the economy a nice boost as research shows that less well off individuals are more likely to spend extra money than save it. Various necessary infrastructure investments such as the North Bothnia Line will also result in more jobs and growth.

Indeed however I at least believe that a lot of the problems with education and welfare under S had their roots in the 1990s economic crisis and resulting cutbacks, the institution of New Public Management in the public sphere, free school choice and resulting segregation, the transfer of education responsibilities to the municipalities (Göran Persson's worst move ever!) and so forth. It's also worth noting that unemployment had in fact been continually dropping for several straight months before the Alliance took power.

And I dunno, some people would find it confusing that the Alliance managed to take power in '06 when the economy was booming and the unemployment was relatively low and going even lower...

Ok, but banning profits in the welfare sector has been clearly rejected by the SAP, right? So I can see why it would gain V votes from SAP, but not why it would cause movement across the centre. Especially since the government has been signalling that they're shifting on the issue as well.

The rest of the stuff in your first paragraph is old-school ideas, several of which are a bit untenable (like, sure if we could fix schools by just throwing a little money at them we already would have and we also wouldn't be beaten by tons of countries with smaller class sizes). I guess my point is that none of it sounds like new reasons to vote left - if those were your ideas I'd have expected you to never vote for the current government anyway. Same goes for unemployment insurance.

It strikes me as a mix of reversals of government policies and tiny tinkerings of the same kind that they were unsuccessfully experimenting with in their time in power.

It's a fair point that it was surprising for the opposition to win in 2006, but in that case  there were several dramatic policy changes in the opposition. I can imagine not wanting to vote for them in 2002 but then changing their mind due to all these changes.

But maybe this is getting too off-topic.  

[The Lord Marbury]

I honestly find it a bit weird that the government is doing as badly as they are. Yes, they're boring and have no ideas etc. But they did largely implement the platform they got elected on and while the economy isn't great that's mostly due to the financial crisis, Sweden is doing ok in an international perspective.

I'm not thrilled by them and I think the Social Democrats have a good lineup but the landslide loss confuses me, to be honest.

I don't agree with you that it's very surprising because in an election a lot of focus tends to be placed on what the parties want to do in the next term rather than what they've done, and the Alliance haven't exactly laid out a plan full of fresh and new exciting ideas.
Tax cuts just ain't what they used to be and now polling shows that voters are far more concerned with welfare, education and employment issues where the oppositions agenda is far more popular because they've actually spent time on building up voter confidence now. Gone are the days when the Alliance could just sit back wait for opposition incompetence and Reinfeldt & Borgs personal popularity to carry them to victory.

That's true, but I'm not clear on what the grand ideas of the opposition are on these issues either?

Problems with employment, welfare and education were present and worsening under the left as well as far as I remember.

The loss I get, but this total meltdown I do find a bit surprising.

Well talking about limiting (or completely banning) profiteering in welfare is a popular one, with little doubt of it being one of the main reasons why the Left Party has been going so strong lately. Then there's also reducing class sizes in schools (as recently copied by the Alliance), increased wages for teachers, larger intake of students at the universities, getting rid of involuntary part-time in welfare professions, etc.

In regards to employment you have the 90-day guarantee for youth unemployed and the education contract which enables young people without a gymnasium-level education to combine work and education.
You've also got improved unemployment insurance which in addition to not forcing people into poverty or relying on relatives it maintains consumption and gives the economy a nice boost as research shows that less well off individuals are more likely to spend extra money than save it. Various necessary infrastructure investments such as the North Bothnia Line will also result in more jobs and growth.

Indeed however I at least believe that a lot of the problems with education and welfare under S had their roots in the 1990s economic crisis and resulting cutbacks, the institution of New Public Management in the public sphere, free school choice and resulting segregation, the transfer of education responsibilities to the municipalities (Göran Persson's worst move ever!) and so forth. It's also worth noting that unemployment had in fact been continually dropping for several straight months before the Alliance took power.

And I dunno, some people would find it confusing that the Alliance managed to take power in '06 when the economy was booming and the unemployment was relatively low and going even lower...

Ok, but banning profits in the welfare sector has been clearly rejected by the SAP, right? So I can see why it would gain V votes from SAP, but not why it would cause movement across the centre. Especially since the government has been signalling that they're shifting on the issue as well.

The rest of the stuff in your first paragraph is old-school ideas, several of which are a bit untenable (like, sure if we could fix schools by just throwing a little money at them we already would have and we also wouldn't be beaten by tons of countries with smaller class sizes). I guess my point is that none of it sounds like new reasons to vote left - if those were your ideas I'd have expected you to never vote for the current government anyway. Same goes for unemployment insurance.

It strikes me as a mix of reversals of government policies and tiny tinkerings of the same kind that they were unsuccessfully experimenting with in their time in power.

It's a fair point that it was surprising for the opposition to win in 2006, but in that case  there were several dramatic policy changes in the opposition. I can imagine not wanting to vote for them in 2002 but then changing their mind due to all these changes.

But maybe this is getting too off-topic.  

I wouldn't go so far as to say that they've clearly said no, they just haven't said yes either. They've obviously taken a very unclear position as to minimize conflict which I think is a big mistake since polling shows that even a majority of Alliance voters oppose tax funded enterprise in the welfare sector taking out profits. That's also the reason why V aren't just taking voters from S or MP (though most of their new support comes from there) but from all the rightwing parties to certain degrees as well. You also see how former C (and to some degree KD) voters in rural areas are moving over to support V (and also SAP) after they're started to feel the effects of privatizations and declining service.

I agree that you can't fix schools by just throwing money at them and that's clearly not the only thing we want to do. I don't really agree that these are just old ideas brought up again, however sometimes you don't need completely new ideas to win over voters as the Alliance's victory in '06 showed, just some removal of the most controversial bits and communicating your message better.

I also don't necessarily think that voters rejected the left because they disagreed with what they were proposing because polling showed in 2010 that on the actual issues the voters had in fact moved further to the left. Although more of them chose to identify as rightwing and with the Alliance despite this, hinting that the left had a much larger problem with how they communicated their message rather than what they were actually proposing.

It's also about what voters care about at the time of the election. Last time the economic issues were highly prioritized which enabled the Alliance to focus on what was (and still is, to a lesser degree) their strongest issue and present an image of there being no real conflict to speak of in welfare issues, making things very difficult for the opposition. Now were seeing the opposite when welfare, education and jobs issues are placed much higher up on the agenda which is benefitial for the opposition.

Well this is an election thread so I don't think discussing the parties and their policies are off-topic or irrelevant at this time...

[Tayya]

So, the government just announced that they are scrapping the planned cuts in student grants...

Which is okay. Annie Lööf calling it "good and important" is not okay.

Regarding the policy discussion, policy is part of the reason but there's definitely more style than substance behind the government's deficit and the gap will definitely close to single digits by the summer.

[Gustaf]

I honestly find it a bit weird that the government is doing as badly as they are. Yes, they're boring and have no ideas etc. But they did largely implement the platform they got elected on and while the economy isn't great that's mostly due to the financial crisis, Sweden is doing ok in an international perspective.

I'm not thrilled by them and I think the Social Democrats have a good lineup but the landslide loss confuses me, to be honest.

I don't agree with you that it's very surprising because in an election a lot of focus tends to be placed on what the parties want to do in the next term rather than what they've done, and the Alliance haven't exactly laid out a plan full of fresh and new exciting ideas.
Tax cuts just ain't what they used to be and now polling shows that voters are far more concerned with welfare, education and employment issues where the oppositions agenda is far more popular because they've actually spent time on building up voter confidence now. Gone are the days when the Alliance could just sit back wait for opposition incompetence and Reinfeldt & Borgs personal popularity to carry them to victory.

That's true, but I'm not clear on what the grand ideas of the opposition are on these issues either?

Problems with employment, welfare and education were present and worsening under the left as well as far as I remember.

The loss I get, but this total meltdown I do find a bit surprising.

Well talking about limiting (or completely banning) profiteering in welfare is a popular one, with little doubt of it being one of the main reasons why the Left Party has been going so strong lately. Then there's also reducing class sizes in schools (as recently copied by the Alliance), increased wages for teachers, larger intake of students at the universities, getting rid of involuntary part-time in welfare professions, etc.

In regards to employment you have the 90-day guarantee for youth unemployed and the education contract which enables young people without a gymnasium-level education to combine work and education.
You've also got improved unemployment insurance which in addition to not forcing people into poverty or relying on relatives it maintains consumption and gives the economy a nice boost as research shows that less well off individuals are more likely to spend extra money than save it. Various necessary infrastructure investments such as the North Bothnia Line will also result in more jobs and growth.

Indeed however I at least believe that a lot of the problems with education and welfare under S had their roots in the 1990s economic crisis and resulting cutbacks, the institution of New Public Management in the public sphere, free school choice and resulting segregation, the transfer of education responsibilities to the municipalities (Göran Persson's worst move ever!) and so forth. It's also worth noting that unemployment had in fact been continually dropping for several straight months before the Alliance took power.

And I dunno, some people would find it confusing that the Alliance managed to take power in '06 when the economy was booming and the unemployment was relatively low and going even lower...

Ok, but banning profits in the welfare sector has been clearly rejected by the SAP, right? So I can see why it would gain V votes from SAP, but not why it would cause movement across the centre. Especially since the government has been signalling that they're shifting on the issue as well.

The rest of the stuff in your first paragraph is old-school ideas, several of which are a bit untenable (like, sure if we could fix schools by just throwing a little money at them we already would have and we also wouldn't be beaten by tons of countries with smaller class sizes). I guess my point is that none of it sounds like new reasons to vote left - if those were your ideas I'd have expected you to never vote for the current government anyway. Same goes for unemployment insurance.

It strikes me as a mix of reversals of government policies and tiny tinkerings of the same kind that they were unsuccessfully experimenting with in their time in power.

It's a fair point that it was surprising for the opposition to win in 2006, but in that case  there were several dramatic policy changes in the opposition. I can imagine not wanting to vote for them in 2002 but then changing their mind due to all these changes.

But maybe this is getting too off-topic.  

I wouldn't go so far as to say that they've clearly said no, they just haven't said yes either. They've obviously taken a very unclear position as to minimize conflict which I think is a big mistake since polling shows that even a majority of Alliance voters oppose tax funded enterprise in the welfare sector taking out profits. That's also the reason why V aren't just taking voters from S or MP (though most of their new support comes from there) but from all the rightwing parties to certain degrees as well. You also see how former C (and to some degree KD) voters in rural areas are moving over to support V (and also SAP) after they're started to feel the effects of privatizations and declining service.

I agree that you can't fix schools by just throwing money at them and that's clearly not the only thing we want to do. I don't really agree that these are just old ideas brought up again, however sometimes you don't need completely new ideas to win over voters as the Alliance's victory in '06 showed, just some removal of the most controversial bits and communicating your message better.

I also don't necessarily think that voters rejected the left because they disagreed with what they were proposing because polling showed in 2010 that on the actual issues the voters had in fact moved further to the left. Although more of them chose to identify as rightwing and with the Alliance despite this, hinting that the left had a much larger problem with how they communicated their message rather than what they were actually proposing.

It's also about what voters care about at the time of the election. Last time the economic issues were highly prioritized which enabled the Alliance to focus on what was (and still is, to a lesser degree) their strongest issue and present an image of there being no real conflict to speak of in welfare issues, making things very difficult for the opposition. Now were seeing the opposite when welfare, education and jobs issues are placed much higher up on the agenda which is benefitial for the opposition.

Well this is an election thread so I don't think discussing the parties and their policies are off-topic or irrelevant at this time...

I know some left-wingers like to think that the right only changed their rhetoric to win in 2006, but personally I don't think that holds up at all. There were a number of dramatic and real changes that brought about that election victory and for better or worse and in a number of ways I think those changes will impact society and politics for a long time to come. I don't see the current opposition line being anything close to that dramatic in nature.

What I meant was that I feel this is veering into a debate on who one should vote for rather than what people will vote for. I'm not passing the blame on that, but I think it's getting close to something that should be in a different thread, that's all!

[Gustaf]

So, the government just announced that they are scrapping the planned cuts in student grants...

Which is okay. Annie Lööf calling it "good and important" is not okay.

Regarding the policy discussion, policy is part of the reason but there's definitely more style than substance behind the government's deficit and the gap will definitely close to single digits by the summer.

Yeah, the government has become self-parody at this point. It'll be interesting to see if it works though. I think they hope that sufficient fine-tuning  can bring them up to speed by the time of the election.

I agree (obviously) that it should become closer. The big question of this election is really whether we get Red-Green majority or not. If not, I suspect there will be some chaos. And with SD at around 10% they do need a landslide win to clinch it.

[The Lord Marbury]

So, the government just announced that they are scrapping the planned cuts in student grants...

Which is okay. Annie Lööf calling it "good and important" is not okay.

Regarding the policy discussion, policy is part of the reason but there's definitely more style than substance behind the government's deficit and the gap will definitely close to single digits by the summer.

This clearly was a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' thing. By sticking with the cut they would've continued pissing off great masses of students and by dropping it they now look like populists who only dropped the proposal because it's strategically unsound in an election year.

Right now Reinfeldt must really be wishing that Per Schlingmann had never left...

I know some left-wingers like to think that the right only changed their rhetoric to win in 2006, but personally I don't think that holds up at all. There were a number of dramatic and real changes that brought about that election victory and for better or worse and in a number of ways I think those changes will impact society and politics for a long time to come. I don't see the current opposition line being anything close to that dramatic in nature.

What I meant was that I feel this is veering into a debate on who one should vote for rather than what people will vote for. I'm not passing the blame on that, but I think it's getting close to something that should be in a different thread, that's all!

I don't think that the Alliance only won in 2006 because of a change of rhetoric however I do maintain that the change of rhetoric and a better run campaign played a larger role than actual policy change. The largest part of their victory was successfully crafting a message which resonated with the voters and changed the perception of the right and the incumbent government. Which for example resulted in such things as voters having the impression that unemployment was rising at a time when it was in fact dropping (something historically quite unprecedented).

Yes they did indeed change or drop some of their most controversial policies and prioritized away former core issues such as defense, but the very core of their platform was still the same as before: cutting taxes, more privatizations, weaker insurance systems. That's what they've done in the past 8 years and I agree with you that it will indeed have a longstanding impact on Swedish politics for the years and decades to come. If it's a positive or negative impact is probably something we'll disagree on.

Ah okay then I understand.

[Gustaf]

Having a unified opposition platform was new, as was the nature of the tax-cuts (being weighted more towards lower-income groups). Not cutting welfare spending, not making any changes in labour law were also big changes. I think taken together that constituted a pretty big shift in actual policy, even if not everything changed.

The change in style also mattered, of course.

It's amusing to see SD attack Bildt about Svoboda. The far-right is going bananas over it, having no idea what to think about the whole issue.

[The Lord Marbury]

Having a unified opposition platform was new, as was the nature of the tax-cuts (being weighted more towards lower-income groups). Not cutting welfare spending, not making any changes in labour law were also big changes. I think taken together that constituted a pretty big shift in actual policy, even if not everything changed.

The change in style also mattered, of course.

It's amusing to see SD attack Bildt about Svoboda. The far-right is going bananas over it, having no idea what to think about the whole issue.

Yes that is what I define as dropping some of their most controversial policies. But I still maintain that their victory was more the result of image than policy adjustments.

I also maintain that there is no real need for the Social Democrats to make significant policy changes because they don't have anything that's nearly as toxic as the right did. After all it was the right that adapted to the left in 2006 and the Alliance haven't been able to shift public opinion on the issues enough that the left need to make a lot of changes to be electable. The only thing which could be problematic is tax hikes but with the tax cuts losing their popularity and SAP saying they'll only raise taxes for the wealthy that's not as big of an issue.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

So to sum up this very long discussion, a centre-right voter from Stockholm Business School doesn't understand why the government is unpopular and a centre-left voter from a place that votes 20 percentage points more left than the country as a whole doesn't think there's anything people find controversial about the Swedish left's policy position... C'mon really.


Anyway I also expect the government to recover somewhat (I would be shocked if they didn't get above 40% in the end) but how much they recover is really a question on wether the government will keep coming with proposal that piss people off (student-grants) and on wether the opposition will go into clown mode this time as well with subway butlers, breast pumps, and banning construction off new malls.     




 

[Tayya]

So to sum up this very long discussion, a centre-right voter from Stockholm Business School doesn't understand why the government is unpopular and a centre-left voter from a place that votes 20 percentage points more left than the country as a whole doesn't think there's anything people find controversial about the Swedish left's policy position... C'mon really.

Good observation...

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I wonder what will happen with the minor parties' votes if the Alliance is still down about 10 points by summer. Wouldn't be surprised if the tactical voters abandon the Titanic and head back to the Moderates. Would be interesting - unfortunately probably in the Chinese sense.

[Tayya]

Good news for the right: A new poll (conducted by SIFO) shows the gap closing. Both C and KD land above 4%.

Bad news for the right: The last SIFO poll was the government's worst February poll (with C at 2.8%, a very unlikely result and way below average) and while the new poll is better for them than most others, they're still down by more than 10%. If a single poll is to be trusted, a two-week-old poll had the gap at almost 20%, which probably hasn't closed as much by then. This poll is therefore likely mostly a fluke.

Apparantly, the Feminist Initiative got 1.4% in the poll, as the high number for "Others" caused SIFO to react and break down the "other parties"' numbers. They are probably partially responsible for the Left Party's downturn (-1.9%). The party has seen an increase in membership lately, but will probably only serve to split the left parties' numbers, especially if the gap between the blocs doesn't decrease further.

There is an outside chance they could surge for the EP elections, but for once their party list doesn't contain Gudrun Schyman (the party's one-woman show and a former V leader) and instead their leading name is Soraya Post, a Roma woman who's primarily known as a Roma activist.

[Gustaf]

So to sum up this very long discussion, a centre-right voter from Stockholm Business School doesn't understand why the government is unpopular and a centre-left voter from a place that votes 20 percentage points more left than the country as a whole doesn't think there's anything people find controversial about the Swedish left's policy position... C'mon really.


Anyway I also expect the government to recover somewhat (I would be shocked if they didn't get above 40% in the end) but how much they recover is really a question on wether the government will keep coming with proposal that piss people off (student-grants) and on wether the opposition will go into clown mode this time as well with subway butlers, breast pumps, and banning construction off new malls.     

Also it's not for certain that C and Kd will recover enough even if the Alliance as a whole does so.


 

I'm really not as right-wing (nor is my social environment) as you seem to think.

This is not a reflection on my personal values or with people I talk to. I don't entirely get, I suppose, why so many people were happy to vote for them last time but aren't now since I don't see that much having changed. That isn't to say I don't understand why people voted left last time - I have plenty of close friends who did.