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Are we witnessing the slow death of the Folkhemmet?

Are we witnessing the slow death of the Folkhemmet?

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Stuart Dickson previews next Sunday’s election in Sweden Are the Swedish Social Democrats, the most successful labour party in the world, about to have their worst general election since 1908? As an undergraduate studying economics at Strathclyde University in the late 80s, I can remember our lecturers spending time on expositions of the Middle Way between capitalism and communism, exemplified by the Swedish Model or Folkhemmet (The Peoples’ Home). At that time of my life I thought of myself as…

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Will the GE be in 2015?

Will the GE be in 2015?

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Or will Parliament heed its Clerk? An interesting piece in the Guardian reports the evidence given by Malcolm Jack, Clerk of the House of Commons, to the Political & Constitutional Reform Committee. He has warned that the plan to introduce five-year Fixed-Term Parliaments (part of the Coalition Agreement) could force the courts to make judgements on “matters of acute political controversy, such as whether an election should be held”. The Clerk also attacked the failure to draft the legislation in…

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Who could be the next Foreign Secretary?

Who could be the next Foreign Secretary?

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Who will follow Hague, and when? Paddy Power have recently put up a new market on who will be the next permanent Foreign Secretary after William Hague. Though the story surrounding his hiring of Christopher Myers has largely died down, Fraser Nelson (Spectator editor writing for the NotW) has hinted that the personal cost of making the statement he released might cause him to step away from front line politics in the near future anyway. Nelson’s article is worth a…

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Boost for Clegg in new ComRes poll

Boost for Clegg in new ComRes poll

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It’s 38/34/18 The first non-YouGov poll for three weeks has a boost for the LDs and is showing a share very different from the online pollster’s recent daily polls. According to ComRes, the yellows are now on 18 per cent, up three points on the last survey from the firm. The Tories, on 38 per cent, are down one point while Labour, on 34 per cent, is up one. There are signs that men are more opposed than women to…

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Could Tory rebels block the AV bill?

Could Tory rebels block the AV bill?

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And what would that do to the coalition? According to stories in the Independent and the Spectator, there are a number of Tory MPs (Bernard Jenkin and Daniel Kawczynski are suggested as ringleaders) who will vote against the Coalition government in today’s vote on the bill that provides for a referendum on AV next May. Some are ideologically opposed to anything that threatens FPTP, some object to the impact of holding it on the same day as the Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish…

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“What to look for in the autumn”

“What to look for in the autumn”

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Millais “Autumn Leaves” (Wikimedia Commons) A round-up of the international scene It’s been a busier August than usual, with the Labour leadership contest and the Australian election, but things will step up a couple of gears this month as politicians return from holidays, parliaments reconvene, and politics returns in earnest for the autumn. Taking its cue from the iconic Ladybird books series (more at bottom), these are a few things “to look out for” as the autumn unfolds. Australia (voted…

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Has the Coulson-saga got legs?

Has the Coulson-saga got legs?

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What is this story really about? I’ve been re-reading the Guardian story about the phone-hacking at the News of the World, as reported in the New York Times extraordinary feature. Even allowing that we had a full-scale spread on the story by the Guardian earlier this year, this story has not been altogether drowned out by the Hague-Myers story or the launch of Tony Blair’s book. The BBC and ITV are both leading with the story this evening. I am…

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