SWEDEN - September 14, 2014 - GUIDE and THREAD

[The Lord Marbury]

Prognostication: V will surpass MP in 2018 if such a government happens.

Definitely, and I think that S might even be in the risk of reaching yet another record low should that transpire. If a Löfven led S+MP minority ends up being unpopular there's no bigger problem for S than an opposition Left Party free to attack them from the left at the same time as they're being hounded by the right. Just look at 1998 for an example.

Also the people who compare today's polling with that of 2009 should keep in mind that the Social Democrats have a far better situation now than they did back then. In '09 Reinfeldt held a big lead over Sahlin in voter confidence while now it's basically just a tie between him and Löfven, and the voters also preferred the Moderates policies over S as well. Now Social Democrats has the lead in jobs where 35% prefer their policies to the Moderates at 23%, while in education they've got 32% compared to 17% for the Liberals. The support they get in education is especially spectacular considering that it was one of their weakest links in the 2006 election and in their post-election analysis after '06 they actually deemed that they would not be able to win the issue.

[The Lord Marbury]

The Left (communist) leader has said that he will NOT support a guvernment that is party is not a part off.

The Left (not actually communist ) leader actually said he will not actively support a government in the same way that the party did with long term agreements between 98 and 06, but rather S and MP would have to negotiate with the party on a case to case basis. However he hasn't said that he would vote down Löfven as PM leading a S+MP minority.

[The Lord Marbury]

Vänsterpartiet är partiet för den som vill ha en rödgrön regering och slippa borgerliga partier i regering. Det står klart efter Socialdemokraternas besked i regeringsfrågan.

- Idag är vi det enda partiet som står upp för en rödgrön regering utan borgerliga ministrar som Jan Björklund eller Annie Lööf. Vi är trötta på de borgerliga partierna och vill inte ha kvar något av dem i regering. Det tror jag vi delar med många väljare. Vårt mål är att ingå i en rödgrön regering med vänsterpartistiska ministrar, säger Jonas Sjöstedt.

Kan Vänsterpartiet tänka sig att regera med C och FP?

- Nej, vi vill inte ha borgerliga partier i regeringen. Vi vill ha Stefan Löfven som statsminister, men inte i sällskap med Lööf och Björklund.

Vad blir skillnaden om S och MP regerar med borgerliga partier istället för med V?

- Skillnaden är enorm. Vi är garanten för att vinstintresset försvinner från välfärden och vi skulle stärka arbetsrätten, det är inte möjligt att göra med borgerliga partier. Och jag har svårt att se hur ett samarbete med Jan Björklund skulle kunna ge någon klimatpolitik värd namnet. Det är ett mycket bekymmersamt scenario.


The Left Party is the party you want to have a red-green government and avoid bourgeois parties in government. It was clear from the Social Democrats slips in government issue.

- Today, we are the only party that stands up for a red-green government without bourgeois ministers Jan Björklund or Annie Loof . We are tired of the bourgeois parties and do not want to keep any of them in government. I think that we share with many voters. Our goal is to be part of a red-green government of leftist cal ministers, says Jonas Sjöstedt .

Can the Left willing to govern with the C and FP ?

- No, we do not want the bourgeois parties in the government. We want Stefan Löfven as prime minister, but not in the company of Loof and Björklund.

What is the difference of S and MP reigns with bourgeois parties instead of V ?

- The difference is huge. We guarantee that the profit motive will disappear from welfare and we would strengthen labor law , it is not possible to do with bourgeois parties. And I find it hard to see how a collaboration with Jan Björklund could give any climate policy worthy of the name. It's a very troubling scenario.

Notice how he's still saying that he's not in any way ruling out working with an S+MP minority but rather he's they're ruling out sitting in a government together with FP or C.

[The Lord Marbury]

But he has actually said that he demands part off the guvernment. I thinks he is afraid off getting isolated. In many cities and regions they work togheter. However it is very interesting that the socialdemocrats seems to rahter be cooperating with the centre-right than with the left.

Yeah but the Left Party has been moving away from their traditional role of passive support party for a long while now, so that's no surprise. Yes, he demands to be a part of the government for any long term policy agreements but he has also pointed out how being in opposition could even help the party grow even bigger.

And I wouldn't say that the Social Democrats are more interested in working with the right than the left. A lot of it is just plain strategy as distancing themselves from the left will help them with the middle class Stockholm voters they lost in the two previous elections, while of course looking bipartisan and willing to compromise is always helpful with undecideds. Policy-wise the party is still much closer to the Left considering the Liberal's tax policy and the Centre's hard right turn on labour laws.

[The Lord Marbury]

It would seem that the Christian Values Party has turned out to be real after all. There was a fake Twitter account (@kristnapartiet) which published tweets in its name during wednesday, where it among other things claimed that the party was fake. They've since then started their own account (@kvpartiet) which they've also linked to on their website (kristnavardepartiet.se).

[The Lord Marbury]

A recent poll by SIFO shows that the government has lost their big lead in economic issues, which used to be their main advantage over the opposition. They still hold a small lead but it's basically a tie now.

Which party would be the best to lead the country?

Moderate: 33 %

Social Democrats: 43 %

Don't know: 24 %

Which party would handle economic issues the best?

Moderate: 41 %

Social Democrats: 40 %

Don't know: 19 %

Which party would be the best at lowering unemployment?

Moderate: 29 %

Social Democrats: 51 %

Don't know: 21 %

Which party would be the best at securing good welfare?

Moderate: 22 %

Social Democrats: 59 %

Don't know: 19 %

Which party would be the best at creating a good school system?

Moderate: 28 %

Social Democrats: 44 %

Don't know: 28 %

[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.

[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...

[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...

[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.

[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.

[The Lord Marbury]

Maybe a line should be added at the botton to show which party lead the government as well, just to clarify...

[The Lord Marbury]

Political superstar Margot Wallström, a former Social Affairs Minister and EU Commissioner who was approached for the Social Democratic party leadership several times but said no at every turn has today come out and said that she's interested in making a return to Swedish politics. A bit of a boon for Löfven who's frontbench isn't exactly filled to the brim with people who have previous cabinet-level experience. Wallström mentioned immigration and integration issues as something that was of interest to her, but IMO she would make a fantastic Minister of Foreign Affairs. With her 10 years as EU Commissioner and 2 years of working for the UN she is definitely the opposition candidate for the position with the most gravitas.

Well unless Deputy UN Secretary-General Jan Eliasson is interested of course (unlikely), but he may be seen as too old for the job anyways.

[The Lord Marbury]

http://www.thelocal.se/20140417/pm-pleads-ignorance-of-bad-vattenfall-bid-on-nuon

So either former Enterprise Minister and Centre Party leader Maud Olofsson is lying about informing Reinfeldt about the Nuon deal or Reinfeldt is lying about not being informed about the most expensive deal ever made by a state owned corporation. Either way one of these individuals have been behaving incredibly incompetently.

[The Lord Marbury]

Swedish Cheese, Gustaf, and the other swedish posters, for which party are you going to vote?

And surprise was felt by no-one.

[The Lord Marbury]

The Austrian newspaper "DiePresse" is reporting that the center-right government is calling for a massive increase in defense spending for the 2015 budget, because of fear of Russian aggression.

Sweden will also order a ton of new submarines and aircraft/fighter jets under these plans.

http://diepresse.com/home/politik/aussenpolitik/1596888/Angst-vor-Russland_Schweden-rustet-wieder-auf

What impact will these plans have ? Could this strenghten the government ahead of the poll, or is it just a thing to divert attention from that scandal you mentioned in the previous pages ?

It's not what you could call a "massive increase". Only 1.2 billion SEK of this 5.5 billion increase is fully financed today and half of that comes from "new priorities" in current defense spending and the other half comes from an increase in fines for some types of criminal offenses! It's just ridiculous. And the fact is that this announcement comes two weeks after the government presented a 300 million cut in defense spending in the spring budget and a few weeks before the joint parliamentary defense committee will present their proposal for future Swedish defense politics. Why couldn't they wait for that to ensure that there was long-term crossparty support in this crucial political area? The answer is it's all about electoral politics here. And I doubt it'll strenghten the government much, generally I think people will see through this or not even pay attention to it.

[The Lord Marbury]

It's not what you could call a "massive increase". Only 1.2 billion SEK of this 5.5 billion increase is fully financed today and half of that comes from "new priorities" in current defense spending and the other half comes from an increase in fines for some types of criminal offenses! It's just ridiculous. And the fact is that this announcement comes two weeks after the government presented a 300 million cut in defense spending in the spring budget and a few weeks before the joint parliamentary defense committee will present their proposal for future Swedish defense politics. Why couldn't they wait for that to ensure that there was long-term crossparty support in this crucial political area? The answer is it's all about electoral politics here. And I doubt it'll strenghten the government much, generally I think people will see through this or not even pay attention to it.

What? Politicians saying they'll do something purely for political gain? Surely not! I'm shocked and disgusted. Of course your party would never do that!

Not say my party doesn't do that kind of stuff either, just saying one could be honest when having a discussion about these things.

[The Lord Marbury]

Election is clearly heating up. This amazing video can be viewed with English subtitles, recommended for one and all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAQDz6m2XPk

What the F did I just watch??? And either way, this vid is far more amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYzNZj-P32o

Anyway, it seems like some righwing party folk on twitter are trying to turn Stefan Löfven accidentally saying that the small town of Knäred is in Skåne when it is in fact in the neighboring province of Halland, by using the hashtag #knäredgate and tweets like this:
"Comforting with a Prime Minister candidate who consciously acts on faulty information. Lucky we don't have nuclear weapons"
-André Assarsson (M), Moderate chief strategist in Stockholm County

Gee, the desperation to find any scandal on the left to distract from Nuon must be gigantic right now.

--------

Also, there's some really rather interesting numbers in the latest DN/Ipsos poll:

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Hmm... the Left Party and Feminist Initative both showing the most significant growth and at the same. One would think that F! would primarily take votes from V, though their recent pro-capitalism statement might hurt them somewhat there. Though I wonder if this is just an outlier since other polls have shown V at about 0,5-2 percent less support.

[The Lord Marbury]

It hasn't been covered a lot in mainstream media but it made a lot of hay among the twitter feminist left where they find a lot of support. But it probably won't effect a significant amount of voters unless they go looking for more info on F!.

LO also went out and said that all of their boards would be fully equal by 2016 no matter if a law is passed. So your argument is invalid.

[The Lord Marbury]

The Centre Party Youth League (CUF) has done it again! In a tweet yesterday they encouraged their members to tweet pictures of what they called "zombie-like leftwing propaganda demonstrators" with the hashtag #thewalkingred tomorrow on Worker's Day. They've now been heavily criticized on social media, by Pirate Party leader Anna Troberg and mainstream papers like Aftonbladet for wanting to post pictures of unknowing demonstrators, which has been seen as highly intrusive and threatening to the demonstrators.

But I find it quite amusing that CUF is accusing the left of being zombie-like when their attempts to keep the barely breathing Centre Party relevant makes that description far more fitting for them.

EDIT: Now anti-racist watchdog blog "Not a rasist but..." and others are urging CUF to renounce the campaign because apparently it can be used by neo-nazis to register and indenty leftwingers. Already some known neo-nazi figures are writing under the hashtag on twitter. CUF chairperson Hanna Wagenius has given a non-apology where she said that she was saddened by the way the campaign was misunderstood.

[The Lord Marbury]

LO also went out and said that all of their boards would be fully equal by 2016 no matter if a law is passed. So your argument is invalid.

I don't believe in any such promises until I see it happen. Besides the fact that they have a 83% male board IN 2014, is troublesome, there's no reason to deny it. Not only is their own national board extremely unequal, if you look at the employee representatives they appoint to boards of big national corporations their record is even worse. It's like someone saying, "We think we should ban smoking, and that's why we will stop smoking... in maybe two years."

As for the walking red, personally I originally thought it was a really stupid initiative, but as it obviously makes the left's heads spin I've figured there must be some merit to it. I fail to see how photos taken in public places of people publicly demonstrating their views is intrusive. As for neo-nazis using it to identify left-wingers, you know if they wanted to do that they could just have went out and taken pictures themselves.       

IIRC, LO has been somewhat sceptical of requiring that boards that boards include X amounts of women so it's a good new step. Yes, it is definitely a big problem that the current board is 83% male but the 2016 deadline for change isn't at all probablematic because I believe the next LO congress isn't until 2016 so it would be impossible to change everything before then, unless they call for an extra congress but that won't happen.

It is when it's done with bad intent and without people's consent. And re: neo-nazis a popular hashtag on twitter with images posted by people who aren't neo-nazis gives them a greater opportunity to do that.

[The Lord Marbury]

So here's a bold and brave prediction for the next government:

I believe it'll be a S-MP minority coalition with support from either V, or V and unoficially some Alliance party (most likely FP)

Prime Minister - Stefan Löfvén (S)   
   
Minister of Finance - Magdalena Andersson (S)
Deputy Minister of Finance -  Per Bolund (MP)
Minister of Foreign Affairs - Margot Wallström (S)
Minister of Justice - Thomas Bodström (S)
Minister of Defense - Urban Ahlin (S)
   
Minister of Education - Gustav Fridolin (MP)
Minister of Commerce & Energy - Tomas Eneroth (S)
Minister of Social Affairs - Veronica Palm (S)
Minister of Rural Affairs - Matilda Ernkrans (S)
Minister of Environment -  Åsa Romson (MP) (She'll also be Deputy PM)
Minister of Migration & Equality - Anders Lago (S)
Minister of Labour - Carin Jämtin (S)
Minister of Culture & Sports - Evin Cetin (S)
   
Minister of Foreign Aid - Laila Naraghi (S)
Minister of Housing - Ylva Johansson (S)
Minister of Social Security -  Gunvor G. Ericson (MP)
Minister of Financial Markets - Jens Henriksson (S)
Minister of Science - Mikael Damberg (S)
Minister of Regions & Infrastructure - Sven-Erik Bucht (S)

20 ministers, 10 men and 10 women, 16 Social Democrats, 4 Greens.


I'll also make a prediction of changes in party leadership after the election:

V, S, and MP leaders will all be reelected.

Fredrik Reinfeldt will be replaced as M leader by Hillevi Engström. (Borg doesn't want the top job.)

Annie Lööf is a goner no matter what and will be replaced as C leader by Anders W Jonsson.

Jan Björklund is also a goner no matter what and will be replaced as FP leader by Birgitta Ohlsson.

Göran Hägglund is safe as long as the KD survives the 4% threshold.

Jimmie Åkesson is safe. 


Gustaf, Joel, Tayya, go ahead and disagree with me.
 

 

I agree with most of this although I would give Damberg Commerce instead of Eneroth, swap Ylva Johansson and Veronica Palm, and I don't think Bodström will be returning to cabinet-level politics.

[The Lord Marbury]

Here's my take. 22 ministers, 5 MP, 17 S, 11 women, 11 men.

Prime Minister - Stefan Löfven (S)
Minister for EU Affairs - Åsa Westlund (S)
  
Minister for Finance - Magdalena Andersson (S)
Minister for Financial Markets -  Per Bolund (MP)

Minister for Foreign Affairs - Margot Wallström (S)
Minister for Trade - Tomas Eneroth (S)
Minister for Foreign Aid - Urban Ahlin (S)

Minister for Justice - Morgan Johansson (S)
Minister for Migration - Ardalan Shekarabi (S)

Minister for Defense - Peter Hultqvist (S)

Minister for Social Affairs - Carin Jämtin (S)
Minister for Public Health and Care Services - Lena Hallengren (S)
Minister for Social Security - Gunvor G. Ericson (MP)
  
Minister for Education - Gustav Fridolin (MP)
Minister for Schools - Ibrahim Baylan (S)
Minister for Culture - Anders Wallner (MP)

Minister for Rural and Regional Affairs - Anna-Caren Sätherberg (S)

Minister for the Environment and Deputy Prime Minister - Åsa Romson (MP)

Minister for Infrastructure - Elvy Söderström (S)

Minister for Enterprise - Mikael Damberg (S)

Minister for Employment and Equality - Ylva Johansson (S)
Minister for Housing, Democracy and Consumer Affairs - Veronica Palm (S)

[The Lord Marbury]

So here's a bold and brave prediction for the next government:

Minister of Finance - Magdalena Andersson (S)

Is she going to be a strong or weak MoF? How does she "rate" compared to Anders Borg?

She'll do fine enough, especially compared to the other Shadow Ministers for Finance (Tommy Waidelich? EEK!). She'll probably have a large influence in the cabinet since Stefan Löfven is more of a consensus-builder than a ram-through-my-opinions type of leader.

Yep, pretty much this. Andersson also has a higher level of education in the area than Borg who never even got a degree. Of course he naturally has more experience with the political side of things, but Andersson's time as an advisor in the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry for Finance between 1998 and 2006, as well as her 3-year stint as director of the Tax Agency certainly makes her one of the most qualified candidates for the job we've seen in recent history.

[The Lord Marbury]

The debate last night was pretty meh. Löfven's preformance was mediocre, all Alliance leaders were more interested in talking about the opposition than their own ideas, Fridolin brought up his teaching background, Åkesson always came back to immigration, news at 11.

The best preformance of the night was clearly Jonas Sjöstedt, especially when he brought up his own experience with unemployment.