Jacob Christensen

• Copenhagen (B) [Monocle]
  (tags: copenhagen travel tourism denmark)
• Utvecklingen går åt rätt håll — men 40 procent av utbildningarna håller fortfarande inte måttet – Högskoleverket
  Högskoleverket har följt upp den förra utvärderingen av lärarutbildningen från 2004 och sett att man på många håll har satsat på att förbättra utbildningen. Samtidigt kvarstår allvarliga brister vilket lett till ett stort antal varningar.
  (tags: sweden education university academic evaluation)
• Scott McLemee – All for Nought? :: Inside Higher Ed
  (tags: zeitgeist 00s history usa)
• Scott McLemee – The 2.0 Decade? :: Inside Higher Ed
  (tags: zeitgeist 00s usa)

It hasn’t made it to the party’s homepage yet¹ , but according to Danish media (Politiken, Berlingske Tidende, Jyllands-Posten) veteran Social Liberal MP Niels Helveg Petersen will be standing down at the next general election.

Helveg Petersen was first elected to the Folketing in November 1966 and with the exception of a term as Chef de Cabinet to the Danish EC Commissioner Finn Gundelach between 1974 and 1977 has served as an MP ever since.² The culmination in Helveg Petersen’s career came between between 1977 and 1990 when he was the party’s political leader at a time when the Social Liberal Party controlled the median legislator in the Folketing and for much of the time was able to determine the political majority and the colour of the Danish government. By opting to support Poul Schlüter in 1982, Helveg Petersen also became one of the political architects behind the economic reconstruction policies of the 1980′s.

On the other hand, Schlüter also became Helveg Petersen’s political nemesis. In 1988, after a campain where the party unsuccessfully tried to present Helveg as a candidate for the PM’s office, the Social Liberals decided to join the Conservative-Liberal alliance in a three-party government in a move which caused conflicts in the Social Liberal Party and which Helveg Petersen never really succeeded in communicating to the general electorate. The result was a troubled government and a massive (in Social Liberal terms) electoral defeat in 1990 which also spelled the end of his time in the political front-line.

Helveg Petersen did make a come-back, however, as Foreign Minister from 1993 to 2000 in the governments led by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, even if Marianne Jelved was by now the undisputed leader of the Social Liberal Party.

Niels Helveg Petersen had a – in my opinion exaggerated – reputation as the big king-maker in Danish politics but he did lead the Social Liberal during an era when the party played a pivotal role in parliamentary politics. He was always more of a parliamentary operator than an effective campaigner and while he contributed to the stabilisation of the Danish economy, he never succeeded in introducing a comprehensive reform of the Danish constitution.

Update: NHP’s title as Chef de Cabinet to Danish EC Commissioner Finn Gundelach has been corrected.

1. It has now [↩]
2. Most papers forget that he was an MP between 1966 and 1974. See his parliamentary biography [↩]