Jacob Christensen

Views about the performances of Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Helle Thorning-Schmidt in Sunday’s debate vary according to the commentators’ political standpoint: Peter Mogensen gives HTS the up, Thomas Larsen and Ralf Pittelkow AFR.

Two fall-outs from Sunday’s debate: Housing policy and immigration policy. Social Democrats claim that the government has halted the production of public housing, the government that construction rates have held up.

The government on the other hand blasts a proposal from the Social Democrats and the Social Liberals about allowing asylum seekers to work.

The Foreign Minister brands New Alliance as anti-patriotic for demanding an inquiry into the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan and the opposition in general for being anti-US and anti-Israel by demanding an inquiry into the CIA secret prisons.

Also: Will the Danish People’s Party surprise pollsters (and carry the majority) or have calculations taken the effect into account?

I haven’t forgotten about the round-up of the first part of the campaign: I’ve written a draft but asked a colleague to see if I have missed something.

It’s not just the Swedes: The Danes can dream about bridges in the air as well. Liberal candidate Karsten Nonbo promises a Gedser-Warnemünde bridge to supplement the Rødby-Puttgarden connection, the Germans managed to get the Danes to finance earlier this year. Plans about a Kalundborg-Århus link has also been making the rounds.

Potential regular readers of this blog will have noticed by now that I don’t write about local politics in UmeÃ¥. The reason in straightforward: I find Umeø politics completely and utterly uninteresting. Being the political editor of one of the local papers must be one of the worst jobs in the media business if you don’t take to writing about national politics, historical US presidents or the like.

As it is, UmeÃ¥ in all of its drab 1970s-style dullness is in fact full of projects and ideas – which then take ages to be realised, if they don’t turn out to be castles in the air. Ever heard about “The Town Between the Bridges”, the “Gigantic Adventure Swimming Bath”, “Ön” or the “City of 150.000 People” (I’m sure that one will send shivers of fear down the spines of the Chinese leaders)? I have. And then some.

Transport infrastructure Рor lack thereof Рis another troubled part of Ume̴ politics. The E4 highway runs right through central Ume̴, making it one of the most polluted towns in Sweden, and projects for a by-pass has been making endless rounds between the town council, planners and the government in Stockholm without even coming close to fruition.

The Botnia railway-link between Sundsvall and Umeå has been hit by more delays than a Danish InterCity-train and more lawsuits than you can possibly imagine in a second rate TV court drama. That the local council insists on building houses right next to what will become a heavily trafficked goods link (the Öbacka II-project) just adds to the entertainment.

And then there is the Finnish problem. Sweden and Finland used to be linked by a number of ferry connections but cheap air traffic and the end of tax-free sales killed off nearly all of the them. The Stockholm – Ã…bo/Helsinki links only survive because an anomaly in the status of Ã…land means that ferries can sell tax-free alcohol and tobacco if they make a short – largely symbolic – call at Mariehamn.

Umeå (or to be more precise Holmsund) used to have a link with the Finnish town of Vaasa but the shipping company pulled the plug not long after the end of tax-free. This meant that you either had to fly (extremely expensive) or travel by road via Haparanda (a 10-hour journey) to get from Umeå to Vaasa. In the end Umeå, Vaasa and various regional bodies managed to negotiate a deal for public support for a ferry line run be the upstart RG Line, created by local Vaasa businessman Rabbe Grönblom, aka. the Finnish Pizza King.

The journey from 2001 up until today has not been a smooth one. The economic support has been questioned continuously and the reliability of the various ferries employed on the connection has been left wanting at several occasions. And now, in a fit of something, the local council in Vaasa has decided that it no longer wants to support the ferry. And that could very well be the end of Fenno-Swedish connections across Kvarken unless the Finns change their minds.

What the good people of Ume̴ Рand their leaders in particular Рare dreaming about? That the EU (which people in these parts of Sweden otherwise loathe) and the Swedish and Finnish governments will splash out billions on Euros on a bridge between Holmsund and Vaasa.

I kid you not.

PS: Just a clarification – the Holmsund-Vaasa connection receives public support from Finland, not Sweden.

• Pettersson – Nurmela: Om olika sätt att möta en stor elefant
  (tags: sweden finland sociology culture)
• Indenrigsministeriet – Kandidater til folketingsvalget 13. november 2007
  (tags: denmark elections)
• Indenrigsministeriet – Kandidatstatistik 2007
  (tags: denmark elections)