In Friday's Dagens Næringsliv, there was a piece on how various investors are planning on donating money to the conservative parties because industry and private enterprises in general are less than satisfied with the current government. This isn't something new of course, but what's interesting is that the investors are trying to wrangle up enough money to match the funds that worker's unions like LO are donating to the socialist side of the political spectrum in Norway. In other words, the capitalists are struggling to raise the same amount of money currently flowing from the unions to the left wing.
Maybe putting a reasonable ceiling on soft funds in Norwegian politics would be a good thing at this point in time. Whatever. It might not matter anyways, because one party, Venstre, refuses to support or indeed be a part of any political constellation involving Fremskrittspartiet (The Progress Party). Being as how Fremskrittspartiet is the second largest political party in Norway and has far more mandates than the traditional conservative heavyweight - Høyre, this pretty much means that the odds of toppling the present government at the next election is shot. Despite Venstre being a minor party, the left and right sides of Norwegian politics are far too close for a majority government to be realistic without support from the middle. Thus, a party which from the latest polls gets 5.4 percent of the votes gets actual political power from being in a pivotal position.
Alternatively put, the parties straddling the middle ground in politics have no real strategies of their own, seeing as how they can flip-flop to either side.
But ok; Venstre does not want to back any government in which Fremskrittspartiet has any role at all. The reason for this according to Lars Sponheim: "I'm supposed to represent Venstre's voters, and what they want least of all is for Fremskrittspartiet to be a part of the government."
Dude; retire now. Don't hide behind the supposed wishes of your voters - at least have the guts to point to irreconcilable differences (which by definition have passed through a negotiation stage) on issues like x, y and z. 'Cause I almost voted Venstre last time around, and there was no mention of this in the party program, which would have featured this scenario if it was anywhere close to being as important as it's suddenly made out to be.
Of course, if Sponheim retires, they've got jack and shit, and jack just quit national politics and also got divorced from his model wife, meaning no free general interest headlines. The less said about the debating skills of Sponheim's second-in-command, the better.
Maybe putting a reasonable ceiling on soft funds in Norwegian politics would be a good thing at this point in time. Whatever. It might not matter anyways, because one party, Venstre, refuses to support or indeed be a part of any political constellation involving Fremskrittspartiet (The Progress Party). Being as how Fremskrittspartiet is the second largest political party in Norway and has far more mandates than the traditional conservative heavyweight - Høyre, this pretty much means that the odds of toppling the present government at the next election is shot. Despite Venstre being a minor party, the left and right sides of Norwegian politics are far too close for a majority government to be realistic without support from the middle. Thus, a party which from the latest polls gets 5.4 percent of the votes gets actual political power from being in a pivotal position.
Alternatively put, the parties straddling the middle ground in politics have no real strategies of their own, seeing as how they can flip-flop to either side.
But ok; Venstre does not want to back any government in which Fremskrittspartiet has any role at all. The reason for this according to Lars Sponheim: "I'm supposed to represent Venstre's voters, and what they want least of all is for Fremskrittspartiet to be a part of the government."
Dude; retire now. Don't hide behind the supposed wishes of your voters - at least have the guts to point to irreconcilable differences (which by definition have passed through a negotiation stage) on issues like x, y and z. 'Cause I almost voted Venstre last time around, and there was no mention of this in the party program, which would have featured this scenario if it was anywhere close to being as important as it's suddenly made out to be.
Of course, if Sponheim retires, they've got jack and shit, and jack just quit national politics and also got divorced from his model wife, meaning no free general interest headlines. The less said about the debating skills of Sponheim's second-in-command, the better.
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2 comments:
if Sponheim retires, they've got jack and shit, and jack just quit national politics and also got divorced from his model wife,
LOL
I won't go public with my view on the progress party (or this matter), but that line above was killer, W-meister!
Thanks, chief. Feel free to use it
I hope this doesn't come across as a line of defense for a Høyre/FrP coalition though - that wasn't my intention at all. Rather, I'd like to oint out that Sponheim is single-handedly making this conflict the issue rather than a conservative coalition (between Høyre and whichever parties) having real odds of seizing power come the next election.
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