News from Scandinavia
Helle Thorning Schmidt has grounds to be pleased as the latest poll results show her recent losses to the Radikal Venstre being regained over the 1st May period (Mette foresaw this happening) .
Chairperson of the Radikal Venstre, Marianne Jelved has seen her party lose a third of its projected seats in less than a month but rejects the notion that her attempt to put herself forward as a possible candidate for the job of PM has cost her party its gains in popularity (it is widely believed that the recent upturn in popularity for the RV came about due to its Syrian/Danish member Naser Khader and his maturity in dealing with the recent Mohammed cartoon crisis)
Chair person of the Socialist People's Party; Villy Søvndal, strengthened no doubt his party's 1 percent rise in popularity has now come out stronger than ever against the conservative government. SF has opened its national congress today and Søvndal (who's name translates to 'sleep valley') has proposed a 'different Denmark'.
"SF is the only party which has consistently shown growth in the opinion polls since last years election" he said (moif: I don't know how thats anything to applaud though, given they've only risen 1%). He went on to lambast Marianne Jelved, calling her a 'political nymphomaniac' and he accused Jelved and Thorning-Schmidt of extending the political life of the Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his non governmental ally, the nationalist party leader, Pia Kjærsgaard.
Søvndal continued by announcing his party (the smallest of the mainstream opposition parties) would move forwards by a clear opposition to governments policies, the enviroment and the war in Iraq.
There was however a new tone amongst the socialists. Søvndal urged democratically minded immigrants to get politically engaged , whilst vowing to bring the fight to the 'religious dark-men' (a reference to their minds, not their skin).
Several prominent SF members have recently come out with a harder than usual line in the 'foreigners debate' (Danish is not as PC as contemporary English) which they see as having been monopolised by the conservative parties who have used the socialists own silence to sow seeds of doubt as to their stance. To correct this perception, the SF integration spokesperson, Kamal Qureshi (the other member of Parliment from a Muslim family) put forward a proposal that parents and spouses caught arranging a forced marriage should be punished with a prison sentence.
moif: thats the sort of thing DF might propose, and which SF would denounce as racism. Its amusing to see that even Socialistiske folkeparti (formerly known as the Communist Party) has also been effected by the mass shift to the right in the population. I can't imagine SF advocating such a policy a few years ago.
Despite all the bickering and name calling between the various left wing opposition parties, they are still united in their opposition to the war in Iraq and both Socialdemokraterne and the Radikal Venstre have announced they will follow Socialistiske Folkeparti and oppose the extension of Danish troops inIraq beyond the deadline which is set for 2007. In their stead, the Danish opposition parties (sans DF) propose to give Iraq 250 million kroner per year, until 2010, for reconstruction. "Our troops are needed more in Afghanistan (where two Italian soldiers were killed today), Darfur or Liberia" Said Mogens Lykketoft (who is one of the old guard powers-behind-the-Thorning-Schmidt-throne). Together with former Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen, he has pointed out that, aside Britain, Denmark is rapidly becoming the only European nation to stand beside the USA.
moif: Yeah... how awful!
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Meanwhile, the Swedish Prime Minister, Goran Peterson told the media, whilst he was in Finland, that Sweden, like the rest of the EU, would not issue visas to members of Hamas. On the very same day, a Swedish diplomat told deputy directors-general of EU foreign ministries meeting in Brussels that Stockholm had issued a visa to Atef Adwan who is to speak as a guest of honour at an immigration conference in Malmø’s People Park.
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