Jacob Christensen

One word of advice: Think before you hit the “Send” button.

Some years ago, one of my ex-colleagues made the classic mistake of sending an e-mail to everybody at the office in stead of the partner of his dreams. Most took it in its stride and wished our by now red-faced colleague good luck. One colleague apparently thought that the mail in fact was written to him – and that did cause a little confusion – while another thanked for the advances but didn’t want to leave a happy marriage.

Love aside, this week has seen two cases of careless use of e-mail here in Sweden and in both cases the role of the Social Democratic party has been part of the problem.

Mail to the Social Democrats

The first case had to do with official but classified information issued regularly by an agency under the Ministry of Defense. During the tsunami hearings the Constitutional Committee of the Swedish parliament discovered that the secretary for international cooperation at the Social Democratic Headquarters was included on the list even if she has no functions in the Swedish civil service.

One question is of cause why the Social Democratic party organisation should receive this kind of information when other parties did not. Is the party per definition closer to the Swedish state than other parties – not just because it is the governing party, but because of the way it sees its role in Swedish society.

Another question which is worth considering is if the Social Democrats could use the information for public relations and propaganda purposes and gain an unfair advantage in the public debate. It is not the first time that the border between the Swedish state and the Social Democratic party has appeared somewhat blurred.

The Consitutional Committee is considering declassifying the mailing list in order to show who actually have access to classified information.

Mail from the Social Democrats

If you read a letter in the press, should you assume that the name of the writer is a cover for an official in a political party or an interest organisation?

My advice is that you should at least be suspiscious. Parties and organisations know that their general credibility is limited which is why news media rely on the spontaneous opinion from the man – or woman – on the street. This is why parties and organisations usually organise mailing campaigns using fronts.

But to the case in point: Some time ago Swedish news media and politicians began receiving mails from persons who alleged that Fredrik Reinfeldt, the leader of the Swedish Conservatives, had hired Latvian babysitters, moonlighting builders and so on.

It didn’t quite add up to robbing the Bank of Sweden but the aim was definitely to hurt Reinfeldt’s credibility in the run-up to the elections in September.

The thing is: You’re not anonymous on the internet – it is really easy to find out which computer a mail has been sent from. I can do it. And the security unit at the Swedish parliament can do it. And the mails were sent from a computer at the Social Democratic HQ.

At first the Social Democratic party secretary denied any involvment but on Friday an official at the HQ confessed that he had sent the mails in question and resigned. It is hard to get a clear picture of how central the official in question was or what his exact tasks in the party organisation were: We only know that he has worked at the Social Democratic HQ since 1999 and specialised in media relations and polls.

A question could be: Were the Social Democrats trying to test the weak spots in the Conservative defenses? Was is a unique event or did the mail campaign reveal a more sinister side to the Social Democratic party culture?

Other politicians have come forward with stories about smear campaigns originating from the Social Democrats and if you go back in time, Swedish politics will show you a history of mud-slinging but the present case will be seen as a clear escalation.

PS: Just a final word to you guys in Erbil. I know where you live. Believe it or not – it is that easy.

Correction: The correct English term for the Social Democrat tactics applied against Fredrik Reinfeldt is smear campaign, not muckraking. See also Wikipedia’s article on negative campaigning.

Do Swedes have a sense of humour?

Most Danes would probably say that the answer to that question is pretty obvious. When it comes to humour, the Swedes belong in a category normally reserved for the Germans, the Saudis and the Spanish Inquisition.

As it turns out, this conception is completely wrong.

If we are to believe an article in Wednesday’s Dagens Nyheter, Swedish media celebrities have for the past fifteen years operated a secret mailing list committed to slander, unsubstantiated rumours and general mudslinging. All under the watchful eye of the has-been pop-singer-turned-internet-oracle Alexander Bard.

The article gives some wonderful examples of mudslinging at its most beautiful. A debate about the status of female columnists turns into a slanderfest of comments about a particular columnist’s alleged weight problem – the high point is reached when a popular agony aunt writes that the columnist’s photo is manipulated so that she doesn’t appear massively obese. And so on, and so forth.

So, what do we make of it?

In my opinion, there are two possibilities:

Either the story is not true but a cruel, but wonderfully executed joke played by Dagens Nyheter on the expense of the Swedish chickeria. And believe me: They really, really, really deserve it.

Or the story is true, in which case the public ought to sue the tabloid newspapers and the weekly magazines here in Sweden for incompetence and gross negligence. Henrik Qvortrup – he is the editor of Denmark’s foremost yellow magazine Se og Hør – would rather go to jail than not publish any of those saucy stories hinted at in DN’s story.

Oh, and by the way: I’ve been reading some newsletters from Rockwoolfonden and Eurobarometer about Danish attitudes towards immigrants. I’ll return with a post about that subject in the near future.

I must be getting old or something. I managed to miss Sunday’s debate between the Swedish party leaders which was broadcast by the commercial TV4 network completely.

I can only offer two excuses

1. As a Danish citizen I am not eligible to vote at the national election. (Actually, as an ex-pat Dane, I’m not allowed to vote in Danish elections as well).
2. I have a huge pile of the New York Review of Books going back to October that I am trying to read my way through. And believe me: That is hard work!

Oh, and if the coverage in Monday’s Swedish newspapers is anything to go by, I really didn’t miss that much.

This one calls for an explanation. Some years ago the Co-Op supermarket chains in the three Scandinavian countries merged in order to meet competition from private chains like Dansk Supermarked and ICA.

So, how did it go?

Depending on what country you are looking at, it’s been a disaster and a success. In Denmark and Norway the Co-Op chains are doing really fine and the Danish results for 2005 were the best ever.

In Sweden, on the other hand, Co-Op is in a deep, perhaps even mortal, crisis. Here the chain performed miserably during 2005 and the Swedish losses nearly wiped out the Danish and Norwegian gains.

The interesting point is that Co-Op has traditionally been linked with the Social Democratic parties and the Labour movements. The Swedish Social Democrats are doing fine at the polls while Swedish Co-Op is bleeding. The Danish Social Democrats are bleeding at the polls while the Danish Co-Op is making money as never before.

Maybe the point is that Social Democrats don’t shop at Co-Op anymore?

It’s the third opinion poll in one week (maybe we ought to ration these things) and it’s the third hammering for the Danish Social Democrats.

This time the pollster is Gallup and the calculation is that support for the Social Democrats is down from 27% just before Christmas to 23% in mid-February.

If the Social Democrats are the loosers, who are the winners then? Here, the answer is a little more complicated because three very different parties have won supporters during the last two months: The Danish People’s Party (up from 13% in December to 15,4% in February), the Socialist Party (only up from 7,7 in December to 8,1% in January but still performing much better than at the general election last February) and the Social Liberal Party (up from 9,2% to 10,3%). This is in line with the trend from Gallup’s January poll.

What is interesting is that with regard to the …you know… Muhammad thing, the Social Democrats are placed in the middle along with the Liberals and Conservatives while the Socialists and Social Liberals attract multiculturalist/libertarian/(pick your term of abuse) voters and the Danish People’s Party traditionalist/uniculturalists/xenophobic/(again, pick your term of abuse) voters.

If you have an opinion about the issue, the Social Democrats really can’t offer anything specific and the party also have a hard time integrating the issue into a larger political agenda. And having three ex-chairmen sending three different messages doesn’t help, either.

Liberals and Conservatives Split Over Boycott-Clauses

The Social Democrats will probably take little comfort from the fact that the Liberal and Conservative Parties once again disagree over how to handle boycott threats from the Arab countries.

This time the disagreement was triggered by a statement from Arla Foods that the company was happy to sign anti-Israel clauses in order to gain access to Arab markets – according to the company’s head of information signing such clauses is a mark of tolerance.

The statement led the political spokesman of the Liberal Party to declare that Denmark just like the U.S. and some other European countries should adopt legislation banning “private” boycotts. A Conservative spokesman said that while such clauses were distasteful, banning them would interfere with the freedom of private companies and be impossible to enact.

In general the Conservative Party has been more accomodating toward statements about the cartoon conflict from the business community while the Liberal Party has supported Jyllands-Posten.

Just to round off this story, Arla sometime during Sunday probably realised that signing anti-Israel clauses could be interpreted as a political statement and issued a press release where the company stated that it also exports dairy products to Israel.

Arla has found itself in a catch-22-like situation recently because the company is the main sponsor for the Danish international soccer team which is due to play a friendly against Israel on March 1. For “technical reasons” the Danish players will enter the field wearing shirts without the Arla logo.

And Finally

The daily Politiken has a long article about the Danish government’s handling of requests from ambassadors from Middle-Eastern states during the autumn. It’s interesting stuff but it will take too long to make a post about that issue right now. Stay tuned. (The article isn’t available on Politiken’s website: You will have to buy a pdf-version of Sunday’s paper to read it).

Despite wall-to-wall coverage in Swedish TV, the hearings by the Constitutional Committee of the Swedish parliament haven’t really led to large scale political repercussions yet.

One reason may be that the Swedes are more interested in alpine skier Anja Pärson’s performance in the on-going Olympic Winter Games, another that the Swedish political landscape is fairly stable on the parliamentary level.

Ministers in the Witness Booth

Ministers Leni Björklund (defense), Carin Jämtin (overseas aid) and Ylva Johansson (health care) made fairly low-profile appearances during their sessions. Johansson faces the toughest PR-battle as she went on holiday abroad with her family two days after the tsunami had struck.

The questioning of Lars Danielsson from the Prime Minister’s Office and Hans Dahlgren from the Foreign Ministry attracted more interest as the two gentlemen were at the centre of the administrative bungle that delayed the Swedish response to the disaster.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Göran Persson and Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds appeared in the committee. Both ministers were heavily criticised for passivity during the early stages of the distaster. Freivalds in particular has been singled out as the most likely political victim.

A short summary of Svenska Dagbladet’s coverage of Freivalds’ appearance can be illuminating. The journalist describes Freivalds as appearing “cool and seemingly untouched” by events and her statement of her case as “an almost mechanical repetition of previous declaration”. Character assasination, Swedish style. (It should be noted that even Dagens Nyheter is kinder to Freivalds)

While Freivalds generally supported her staff, Göran Persson was more assertive and criticised some central managers in the Foreign Ministry.

Political Effects

What, if any, political effects the hearnings will have is difficult to say. Back in December, the Green Party, which is one of the parties supporting the government, declared that Foreign Minister Leila Freivalds should resign and the party’s spokesman Peter Eriksson repeated this position today. On the other hand, Eriksson did not say if the Green Party would support a motion of no confidence against the Foreign Minister.

As one of my colleagues was offended by my calling “Mandag Morgen” (or to be more correct Mandagmorgen) a think tank, I will respond with a link to a story from my favourite cartoon “Egoland”.

The story is called “Self government” (Selvforvaltning in Danish) and it also includes a think tank. If you can’t wait for it, the think tank appears here.

We shall see if the Libertarians will start rioting.

PS: If you are not Danish, one joke made in the story is not obvious. Divus Madsen’s (that’s God to you) intern Darvin (sic!) is modeled on the Danish science journalist Tor Nørretranders.

Yes, indeed. I am now the proud owner of the ECPR reprint of Giovanni Sartori‘s classic Parties and Party Systems – A Framework for Analysis. Get it at Amazon.co.uk.

And while we’re at it: Sartori’s The Theory of Democracy Revisited is also still worth reading. You may or may not agree with Sartori, but you will enjoy his arguments. Also available at Amazon.

These days everyone has a homepage – and so does the great Sartori.

Somehow, I missed a poll carried out by Gallup and published in Berlingske Tidende on Sunday.

Just as the “Mandag Morgen”-poll and earlier polls, this poll paints a more detailed picture of Danish attitudes. On balance, a relative majority of the population (49% to 43%) found that Jyllands-Posten should not have published “satirical images of the prophet Muhammad”.

It is only among supporters of the Danish People’s Part that a clear majority supports the publication while supporters of the left-wing Unity List, the Socialist Party and the centrist Social Liberal Party are generally critical and Social Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives more or less evenly divided. Berlingske Tidende notes that people over 60 and those living on Sjælland were especially critical of Jyllands-Posten’s decision to print the cartoons.

This picture repeats itself when people were asked if they could understand if Muslims felt insulted by the publications. This view is supported by 56% against 41%.

On the other hand, a majority thought that the debate on freedom of speech had been positive.

Finally, 65% of the respondents found it very likely that Denmark would be the target of terrorist acts performed by Muslim Fundamentalists in the near future. This is down from 75% in July 2005 but up from 52% in September 2004.

And Finally: A Bit of Swede-Bashing

Please allow me a rant to round up the week-end. You see, Swedish media were very quick to report the opinion poll which showed increased support for the Danish People’s Party. But they have been slow to report the more moderate findings.

Why?

Well, during the last weeks Swedish media have been full of news stories and columns depicting the Danes as a bunch of xenophobic crypto-fascists (yes, I have been collecting news items). And we wouldn’t want to do anything that just might disturb that cozy picture, would we?

Well, how about this for a surprise:

Cheney shoots man in hunt error.