I just happened to be listening to this this morning.
Perhaps Mona could adopt it as her anthem (see previous post)?
Posts Tagged ‘Mona Sahlin’
An anthem for Mona
May 8, 2016Mona Sahlin’s mortgage affaire is now morphing into a “bodyguard” affaire
May 7, 2016Mona Sahlin resigned (again).
The basic story is given in The Local:
The Swedish newspaper Expressen revealed on Wednesday that Sahlin provided written certification that her bodyguard earned 120,000 kronor a month so that he could buy an apartment. The bodyguard, in fact, only earned 43,000 kronor a month.
When confronted by Expressen, Sahlin initially stated that she had paid the difference out of her own pocket, before retracting the statement when it was proven by Expressen to be false.
The Ministry of Culture and Democracy then announced that Sahlin had resigned with immediate effect.
There are new revelations every day and what seemed to be just a mortgage affaire where Mona Sahlin had tried to help her personal bodyguard to buy a very expensive apartment by falsifying his apparent income is now morphing into something else. And that something else is centered around the “personal bodyguard” and his relationship with Mona Sahlin.
- The “personal bodyguard” (PB for convenience though he cannot be named) was not actually her bodyguard. She had 6 personnel from the police seconded for her security.
- The PB was ostensibly employed by the Ministry of Culture as an “assistant” but at a salary far in excess of other “assistants” at Mona Sahlin’s request.
- At the Ministry he is recorded as being an assistant to Mona Sahlin for handling press enquiries.
- The PB was the only person at the Centre against Violent Extremism who did not report to the Chief of Staff but reported directly to Mona Sahlin.
- His duties at the centre were said to be to include “future security questions” which, presumably, is the justification for his being called a bodyguard.
- The PB was rarely to be seen at the Centre.
- Mona Sahlin accompanied her PB for the showing of the 10 million kronor apartment he later bought.
- A 50,000 kronor per year “VIP parking place” was paid for by the Centre but was only available to the PB (and Mona Sahlin). It was hired over the objections of the Head of Staff at Mona Sahlin’s insistence and nobody else at the Centre even knew where the parking was located.
- The PB drives a very hot set of wheels – a sports car in the $120,000 class – which is not out of place in the VIP parking.
Mona Sahlin and anonymous PB image Expressen
Speculation in the blogosphere is rife. Mona Sahlin and her PB have now resigned. There are reports of a very chaotic situation at the Centre. Mona Sahlin also sits on some other Boards – with quite generous remuneration – but her somewhat sporadic and ill-prepared attendance is now receiving scrutiny.
The Sahlin affaire is now the lead story and has relegated the travails of the Green Party (islamic infiltrators in the cupboard) and even Donald Trump from the top spot. I really don’t much care what politicians get up to in their private lives. But it is beyond the pale when public people are incompetent and think they can escape scrutiny. And when it is preaching politicians who trip up it only proves that they are all proponents of “Do what I say and don’t look at what I do”.
But the burning question – which she has brought on herself – is “What was her relationship with her PB”?
Juholt, the smiling Stalin, begins the purge as the Social Democrats try to relive the past
March 22, 2011The Social Democrats in Sweden will have their convention at the end of this week where Håkan Juholt will be confirmed by a vast majority, if not unanimously, as their new leader. It will all seem very democratic of course even though the party’s Nomination Committee produced his name out of a hat at the last minute after a very obscure and confusing process reminiscent of a Soviet style politburo election in action.
Håkan Juholt : image ulf-vargek.blogspot.com
While Juholt’s physical resemblance to a smiling Stalin is meant partly in jest, the coup by the left wing of the party and the subsequent purge of the more moderate and “right-wing” leaders is anything but a jest. There may not be much real blood spilled in these days but the elimination of the “opposition” is as ruthless as anything Stalin perpetrated. In an organisational sense the Social Democrats are the true inheritors of the power broking style of the communist parties of the Soviet bloc. The smoke-filled rooms are gone (since this is Sweden and smoking is almost as sinful as any hint of male chauvinism and certainly more sinful than paedophilia) but the back-rooms are still around and the influence of the power brokers still reigns supreme.
Of course a new leader will appoint his friends around him. But guilt by association has been created as a new sin within the Social Democrats. The Nomination Committee has done its job well and prepared the way for a purge. Where unwanted individuals actually proposed policies more in line with the electorate, they have been blamed for the election defeat without reference to policies so that they can be removed. Where favoured individuals backed the losing policies they have anyway been “promoted” as being the instruments of rejuvenation. But all of this is merely an attempt to step back to the “good old times” of 40 years ago.
The ousting of Ylva Johansson and Thomas Östros is extraordinary. The latter is being punished for being Mona Sahlin’s candidate for finance minister. There seems also to be a new principle that not only the leader shall be held accountable for policy failures.
It looks like a shift to the left. (So the Social Democrats) dismiss Thomas Östros who criticized the Social Democrats’ fiscal policies from the right and selects Veronica Palm who has defended the tax policy adopted before the election.
I wonder how long it will take for the Social Democrats to realise that trying to recreate “good old times” is a cul-de-sac.
Håkan Juholt – A Stalin with a smile for the Swedish Social Democrats?
March 15, 2011
Håkan Juholt. photo Bertil Ericsson / Scanpix
The Social Democratic party in Sweden have been choosing a new leader to replace Mona Sahlin who resigned after the party’s debacle in the last general elections. To the surprise of many the Nomination Committee has proposed Håkan Juholt, a member of Parliament for 15 years and chairman of the parliament’s defence committee but a relative unknown.
Though I am no expert, I find the Social Democrat’s selection process for a new leader a remarkable example of old-fashioned politburo machinations masquerading as a democratic and open process. A secretive nomination cloaked by an apparently open vote of approval at a party convention — but where the the Nomination Committee’s proposals are always adopted. The Nomination Committee itself works in some unknown fashion where “consultation” with all the party districts is carried out through some mysterious and secret channels. The surprise expressed by so many Social Democrats at the committees final choice of Håkan Juholt also demonstrates that there was no obvious choice by a majority. Traditionalism and back-room deals by a small cabal still controls the Social Democrats. Their so-called “democratic selection” is just a sham.
The nomination of Juholt is considered a coup for the left wing of the party. The Local:
According to a poll published on Friday in the Metro newspaper, nearly two thirds of Swedes surveyed said they had no idea who Juholt was, while an additional 22 percent said they only knew his name.
Metro went on to compare Juholt to Super Mario of the eponymous video game. Both have mustaches and both are heroes, although Super Mario fights “flame-throwing turtles” while Juholt’s main enemy is a “centre-right Alliance that stole his voters”.
The Social Democrat-supporting Aftonbladet praised Juholt’s folksy appeal and the fact that he had “visited every Social Democratic association between Ystad and Haparanda”, two cities in the far south and far north, respectively.
While concluding that the choice of Juholt “could very well work”, Aftonbladet cautioned that “despite Julholt’s many years in national politics, one can’t find a single political idea that he’s promoted”.
The independently liberal Expressen labeled Juholt “a compromiser’s compromise”, adding that the choice of Juholt, along with Carin Jämtin as party secretary, was a “major victory for the party’s left”. ..
The independently liberal-conservative Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) lamented that those who hoped for a “dynamic and future-oriented fountain of ideas behind the mustache” will likely be disappointed.
The paper points out that Juholt is no fan of “renewal”, but that he was approved because he has a “sufficiently weak profile so he can’t challenge the traditionalists”.
Interestingly the previous party secretary resigned his post one day before the nominations were announced and while he gave family reasons it was obvious that he had to do so only because he was male. The balance of the sexes had to be maintained with a female party secretary, Carin Jämtin, having to be nominated to balance the nomination of Juholt as party leader.
Political correctness in the shape of maintaining an equality of the sexes in Sweden sometimes goes to extraordinary lengths and often leads to the downgrading of talent and competence as selection parameters.
In any event the leftward lurch of the Social Democrats is a knee-jerk manifestation of the longing for the “good old times” of a party which has lost its way. It is hardly likely to lead to a rejuvenation of the party which is badly needed.
And Juholt is not , in my opinion, going to be a Super Mario. He is likely to prove to be a smiling Stalin.
I now expect a purge of right-wing and centrist members from the Social Democrats.
The k2p blog 