Sadly, it was only a matter of time.
Beware the lesson of the Tory wolf in liberal clothing
Sweden's great social democracy has been transformed for the worse -
and Britain risks importing the nightmare
Polly Toynbee in Stockholm The Guardian, Tuesday April 8 2008 Article
historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian
on Tuesday April 08 2008 on p31 of the Comment & debate section. It
was last updated at 00:03 on April 08 2008.
The 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," Cameron said, welcoming 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." He listed the rolling
international victories of the right: "Everywhere the centre- 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 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%, 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 unplanned
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 by the same amount. This strikes at the heart of the Swedish
model which delivered industrial peace and prosperity with 90% union
membership arranging civilised 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 GPs 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 programme the present Swedish
conservative government is expanding; only about 10% 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 neighbourhood
school that he attended. Instead she travels miles away 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
centrepiece 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.
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