British Conservatives are studying how the Swedish right beat the long serving Social Democrats at their last election. What was their magic template?
"There is a lot the Conservatives can learn from the Swedish Moderates," Tory leader David Cameron said, welcoming Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in London recently.
"How to make bold and lasting change, how to reform welfare, in health how to put the consumer in control, in education how to put parents in control," Cameron said.
He listed the rolling international victories of the right: "Everywhere the center-right has the right ideas at the right time!"
That evening he took Reinfeldt home to dinner to glean the secrets of his electoral success.
So a visit to Sweden to find out what Reinfeldt's conservative coalition has done in office may offer a glimpse into what a Cameron government might do.
First, how did they win? Set the scene back in 2006 when prime minister Goran Persson had been finance minister, then prime minister for 12 long years. He was deeply unpopular, leaden, lacking in charm and out of touch. His natural successor, Anna Lindh, popular and talented, had been assassinated and the Social Democratic party, as well as its leader, seemed incapable of averting what it knew to be the coming electoral catastrophe.
Failing to eject Persson despite disastrous polling predictions, they sleep-walked over the precipice with their eyes wide open. Even Moderate Party ministers admit there was no national swing to the right - only a desire to evict an unpopular leader, so the voters did what the Social Democrats should have done. Familiar?
The Moderates only had to make themselves respectably electable and wait for the ripe plum to drop. At the previous election they had crashed at just 15 percent, so Reinfeldt, an appealing and eloquent 41-year-old, had a free hand to change everything. His tactic was to adopt virtually all Social Democrat policy so there was no observable difference - familiar? His one key issue was hidden unemployment and government inertia over too many people on sick pay.
What has Reinfeldt done? A lot more than voters bargained for. Welfare reform has been radical: benefits are cut and so are taxes. Everyone in work gets new tax credits: in Britain tax credits are benefits aimed at the poorest, in Sweden they are tax cuts for all.
National insurance contributions have been raised sharply, with the effect that nearly half a million of the lowest paid have walked away from the scheme, leaving them nothing if they lose their jobs. Since the scheme is administered via the unions, union membership has dropped.
This strikes at the heart of the Swedish model which delivered industrial peace and prosperity with 90 percent union membership arranging civilized pay agreements with employers. Generous unemployment pay was key, allowing unions flexibility to let jobs go in dying industries, encouraging new industries to start up and Sweden's GDP to grow faster than most. But the assault on benefits and unions puts all this in peril. At the same time, the Moderates abolished wealth tax: it wasn't large, but it was symbolic.
This wasn't what the public voted for and polls show Reinfeldt's government extremely unpopular. Applying more of the same medicine, they hope a third round of tax cuts at the next budget might restore their fortunes - though neither tax nor benefit cuts please voters.
Meanwhile more of the health service is contracted out, with general practitioners free to charge for the first time, raising alarms that they are moving out of poor areas to richer places where they can earn more. The prime minister's wife, in charge of the Stockholm region's health service, has been particularly radical.
State-owned Absolut vodka has been sold to the French, and state-owned liquor stores are about to be sold off too. Museums that were always free now charge high entry fees - for British visitors a crisp reminder of the Thatcher years.
Education is where Cameron draws most from Sweden. When last Swedish conservatives were in office, in the early 1990s, they allowed anyone to set up a "free" school, however small, and claim the state's per capita allowance for pupils: voluntary and private for-profit schools opened, as well as Muslim and Christian schools. Cameron now plans to do the same.
The biggest for-profit company - Kunskapsskolan - is about to open academies in Britain next year, justified to their shareholders as experimental loss-leaders. But if Cameron wins, the company will be in prime position to open as many "free" state schools as there are parents wanting to use them.
Interestingly, however, this is not a program the present Swedish conservative government is expanding; only about 10 percent of Swedish children attend "free" schools, and Reinfeldt's ministers say their energy is directed to improving ordinary state schools.
"Free" schools have proved socially divisive, attracting more middle-class families and ethnic minorities, many have restrictive academic admissions criteria, and there is intense unease over new segregated faith schools.
Here is an example of how "choice" can also restrict choice: a former Social Democrat minister tells me he is sad he feels he no longer has the choice to send his child to the once socially mixed neighborhood school that he attended. Instead she travels to a "free" school, where the brightest children have congregated, making his old school much worse.
It's an irony that the Swedish Conservatives no longer promote the "free" schools that Cameron will make his centerpiece policy - expect similarly divisive effects.
At present, the Swedes look certain to vote out the right: the nation's history is of Social Democracy punctuated by brief evictions as wake-up warnings. This time they voted for a wolf in sheep's clothing and are now appalled at what may be permanent damage to the successful Swedish model of cooperation between unions and industry, with high taxes and a generous welfare state.
Putting up taxes and benefits again is far harder to do, so even a modest dose of ideological Thatcherism could break the harmonious political ecology that made Sweden one of the most economically and socially successful societies on earth. The Swedish Social Democrats have a popular new leader in Mona Sahlin - while the man now most reviled is Goran Persson for hanging on like grim death and taking this party down with him.
Long incumbency requires a dramatic political renewal that he could never provide. Cameron is not the only one looking to Sweden for lessons and warnings.
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
When China passed its “Anti-Secession” Law in 2005, much of the democratic world saw it as yet another sign of Beijing’s authoritarianism, its contempt for international law and its aggressive posture toward Taiwan. Rightly so — on the surface. However, this move, often dismissed as a uniquely Chinese form of legal intimidation, echoes a legal and historical precedent rooted not in authoritarian tradition, but in US constitutional history. The Chinese “Anti-Secession” Law, a domestic statute threatening the use of force should Taiwan formally declare independence, is widely interpreted as an emblem of the Chinese Communist Party’s disregard for international norms. Critics
Birth, aging, illness and death are inevitable parts of the human experience. Yet, living well does not necessarily mean dying well. For those who have a chronic illness or cancer, or are bedridden due to significant injuries or disabilities, the remainder of life can be a torment for themselves and a hardship for their caregivers. Even if they wish to end their life with dignity, they are not allowed to do so. Bih Liu-ing (畢柳鶯), former superintendent of Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, introduced the practice of Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking as an alternative to assisted dying, which remains
President William Lai (賴清德) has rightly identified the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a hostile force; and yet, Taiwan’s response to domestic figures amplifying CCP propaganda remains largely insufficient. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) recently confirmed that more than 20 Taiwanese entertainers, including high-profile figures such as Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), are under investigation for reposting comments and images supporting People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drills and parroting Beijing’s unification messaging. If found in contravention of the law, they may be fined between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000. That is not a deterrent. It is a symbolic tax on betrayal — perhaps even a way for
RSS