Sweden now has its period of post-election political horse-trading, in order to form a new government out of its plethora of leading parties. Yesterday the sitting prime minister, the decent, working-class Stefan Löfven, lost a vote of confidence in Parliament and so had to resign. Kajsa tells me that a favourite candidate to take over is Annie Lööf of the extreme free market-liberal ‘Centre’ Party. Four years ago I wrote a piece on her for the LRB Blog, which was taken up by a Stockholm tabloid, and which I think is maybe worth re-posting here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/02/04/bernard-porter/14630/. – She may have moved on since then. Kajsa tells me she’s refused to bring the extreme Right-wing ‘Sweden Democrat’ party into any coalition under her. That must be a mercy.
I’ve been off this site recently because I’m working hard on a review of a provocative new book about Sweden: Kajsa Norman’s Sweden’s Dark Soul, due out in November. My piece will be in the Literary Review‘s Christmas issue. I may see if they mind my putting it up here before then. (Or would they notice anyway? Porter’s Pensées is hardly MSM.)
Porter’s Pensées 
Not really fully on the topic, I know; however, when Thatcher joined the Heath cabinet in 1970, the Tory government of the day presided over a UK with a Gini index that was actually lower (fractionally) than Sweden’s. And at that same time, the UK was only 0.01 more unequal than the PRC, which in those days was still in the throes of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
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Annie Lööf: a supporter of polygamy and Margaret Thatcher. Members of a strange ideological harem.
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