Jacob Christensen

As expected LEGO and the Danish government were less than happy about the poster linking LEGO (and Denmark) with racism.

According to news reports, a UN spokesman declared that the people behind the poster “probably never realised that LEGO was a Danish firm” and that the poster “was due to be retired after 24 hours anyway.”

And the moon is made of cheese, one might add.

My colleague Nicholas Aylott posted this analysis on the homepage of the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group. And no: I will not be trying to guess who Göran Persson will appoint as the new Swedish Foreign Minister.

Update: And another of my colleagues, Professor Torbjörn Bergman, is quoted on Reuters.

Due to illness, I haven’t been able to write anything about the verbal attacks delivered by Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the political leader of the Social Liberal Party Marianne Jelved.

Right now, I will just note that the Muhammad crisis according to Mr. Fogh Rasmussen divided the righteous from the cowards and that Ms. Jelved replied by calling Mr. Fogh Rasmussen the most dangerous man in Danish politics for the last 60 years.

Danish political commentators have relished the unusual fight and foretold the demise of the Social Democratic Party.

And just to finish this post, Danish media are quoting a letter circulated by the chairman of the section of Immigration Lawyers under the Danish Bar and Law Society Anders Christian Jensen where he condemned colleagues who participate in meetings concerning immigration and refugee policies with the Prime Minister. Mr. Jensen argued that such meetings would be the same as having Jewish organisations entering negotiations with the then Chancellor of Germany, Mr. Adolf Hitler, during the Holocaust.

I don’t know why but for some reason Denmark and Danes used to have a reputation for being boring.

This is just to note that the Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds once again is the centre of an embarrassing controversy.

During the Muhammad cartoon crisis a Swedish web-hotel turned off the homepage of the extremist right-wing party Sverigedemokraterna because it featured some of the cartoons. The problem was that the web-hotel closed the page after being contacted by the Swedish Intelligence Agency and that the agency in its turn had conferred with the Foreign Office before contacting the firm.

So, was the government – i.e. the Foreign Minister – involved? Laila Freivalds said no, but new reports suggest that the correct answer is yes. Freivalds now claims that she was chocked by learning that the Intelligence Agency wanted to – erm – persuade the web-hotel to turn off the homepage.

To say that Freivalds is a political liability to the Swedish government and the Social Democratic Party is an understatement but how it all will end is difficult to say right now.