Norway remains a thorn in the side of the Neoliberal fascist movement. It wasn't so very long ago in the 1960s in fact that Norway had one of the poorest economic standards of living in Europe, at a level on a par with Portugal. Oil was then of course a huge fortuity. But it was more the perception that this massive wealth could be shared by society and everyone should be able have a better standard of living throughout society that is the vital difference between democratic Norway and the now post democratic UK and USA.
The post war growth in the economy and average standard of living hit the buffers in the 1970s in many western countries, but the UK and the USA as now fading imperial powers. The cure for these nations was presented by the Neoliberal agenda which has now had over 30 years to run its course and deliver economic growth and a revival in average living conditions. Only it hasn't - economic growth from the 1980s to current day has declined and on average, been far lower than the post war Keynsian period. However growth in value for the very wealthiest has increased as probably never before, even in the medieval times of Kings, Popes and warlords.
Norway was an easy win for both social democracy and oil capital. There was a willing workforce, many of whom were seamen or worked with mechanics on farms and huge oil resources relative to the population. Also there was a large degree of social cohesion in terms of race and a rather class-less society with Christian values. People lived in the 1960s in either small communities where they all met at school, church and sports club or they lived in quite small cities where they organised themselves by unions, associations and chambers of commerce and more closed old-boy gentlemans clubs.
Norway is a G20 country while the USA and UK over shadow the country in terms of net wealth and now China eclipses any single economy in terms of growth and probably net value if there ever was a fire sale for an alien world with enough gold to buy it out. What Neoliberalist propganda has acheived in the UK and USA is the perception that liberal, Keynsian economics are inherently wrong and that wealth is best created and distributed by the individual acting by their own working efforts alone.
The end result over the last 30 years of the rampant application of NeoLiberal (I prefer neoconservative as a term) has been a shift of power away from collective bargaining and away from democratic control or investment in the essentials of life towards ownership by inevitably the rich global elite and their massice enterage of 'white russians' - the well paid career fascists in politics, the judiciary and the police, the 'independent economic institutes' and the stock markets.
As once democratically empowered voters and unions members we are now 'empowered' existential beings in the post collective society. Those who deserve more, work harder get more. Dog eat dog. The reality is somewhat different from the utopian ideal which promised economic growth and a better standard of living via lower taxes and more efficient, privatised essential services. Freeing up so much flow of money and power for the rich elite should have lead to 'trickle down' which rather instead is the biggest lie ever uttered by a politician. Now in the UK and USA there are increasingly expensive
Social cohesion is something which is a little intangable, but certainly the modern way of life and economy does more to create social outcasts in terms of two main factors - mental health and migration. Poor mental health provision. Metropolisation in Norway is a large economic factor and with the centralisation of oil corporates and the 'beasts of quango beaurocracy' moving to Oslo in particular, so has the City over taken the county as where most people live and work. Cohesion means some nice nationalist things with a small N - cross country skiing, football, and the general obsession with fitness and achievement via completing distance events.
However more people are becoming politically actuive in a NeoLiberal party, the Fremskritts Parti, or ""progress party". They are being drawn in by the promise of lower taxes delivering higher personal wealth for all, and the use of nationalism and outright racism to exploit the unease that many Norwegians feel about the growth of in particular, Muslim immigration. While the centre of politics want to both limit assylum based immigration now, they also want to promote better integration. FrP have taken a move away from this in policy now by extending the period under which applicants for assylum can expect to wait before a decision is made.
The Left across Europe have also agreed that this massive influx of in particular, unskilled young male muslims is unsustainable, and even Merkel has renaged on her dream of filling the gap in the mysterious decline in the German population with middle eastern faces. However xenophobia is an area the soft right and the Left will not enter while the FrP feel they have free form to promote racist ideology based upon prejudices about Islam, in particular appealing to our western woman, while using skin colour in their posters to raise hackles and exploit fear, with "the rapist was of foreign origin' along with a white girl being persued by a middle eastern youth.
Like Trump in the USA, they have found that hate and suspicion pays in current day politics, as much as greed does. Post war social democracy created it's own monster - a greedy educated white collar and skilled blue collar new economic middle class on the one head of the beast, while on the other a jealous, highly taxed over class who found commod ground with the other head. Along with the new super global corporations and their lobby structures and legal department muscle, a many headed medusa was formed with the Reagen -Thatcher followers as the vocal choir of trans atlantic reform for the rich to become far more powerful than they ever really had been.
There are of course many criticims which can be laid at the door of Liberalist and Socialist ideologies. An ever increasing tax burden on all of society linked to the need to always be paying unionised workers in line with inflation with no real incentives or momentum for gains in productivity. Yet thrity years on the UK languishes in productivity because it has largely deindustrialised. Privatised public services can now exert above inflation price rises on consumers based on either local monopolies, such as rail, or subtifuse in marketing power and water utilities. Also these utilities must have large beauroracies in croporate accounting compliance for the LSE, and as mentioned, large marketing budgets in order to maintain an acceptable churn rate in what is a soft war of attrition.
What lies in store for Norway with the inevitable extention of NeoLiberal economics via a shift to the right with FrP steering much of the current and probably next government? Better, toll free roads? More money in your pocket from lower taxes? Peace of mind from efficient privatised public services? The release of wealth from where there was once communist style stagnation?
Unlike Norway, the UK and USA are at the bitter end of 30 years of neoliberalism and proto nationalism. Public spending as a proportion of GDP is not low because the countries have lagre defence budgets to maintain their international power, as demonstrated in the 'oil grab' war against the bogey man of Sadam Hussein, with the result being the rise of IS/ISIS/ISIL. Also they have large welfare bills in keeping the lid on social unrest from the growing underclass and as revealed in the last few years, subsidising the 'procariat' with their part time temporary jobs in retail and privatised services. Even the UK chancellor is doing something dramatically social democratic to address this faslehood, by rasiing the mimiunm wage. Average wages have been slow to grow in the post eighties malaise and have been in relation to inflation stagnant since the financial collapse of 2008. Yet average house prices have gone on now to be more than 12 times average income. There is then no coincidence that the average first time buyer is 37 years old, and rising due to this disconnect.
The UK economy has moved quite quikcly away from being an economy based on investment and return in prodcution as main value creation, with high economic growth relative to the last 20 years low single figures, to a "service" economy where capital invests more in fact in property and essential public utilities.THe economy has moved away from manufacturing to being an owned-to-rent where capital now makes most return on investment from exerting ever more rent rather than 'earned income' from production. Property is an esculator which is linked to three factors - growth in population, growth in wages and metropolisation of jobs. Growth in any one of these areas would be enough to make for an above bank interest ROI, but all three in combination can accumulated to make for double figure ROI per annum, which is just not available via investing in the risky industrial productioin economy, no matter how high tech it is. However this own-to-rent capitalist economy includes not only that rented property you lived in until you were in your mid thirties, but also those high electricity and gas bills, and that expensive commute and that declining privatised service you pay more for less for such as the post office/Royal Mail.
Norway can expect that average wages will decline under neoliberal rule, while take home money may increase by tax cuts, these for the average worker will soon be eaten up by higher costs of housing. Why? Because tax cuts will give the wealthiest the most money back and they will invest in property, as for the reason explained above- it is percieved as the 'safest' ROI and has become so historically.
Norway can also expect that privatised public services whill either cost more, as in the railways or 'own proportion' in health, or deliver less, such as road repairs being less effective. The need to show a large gross margin, eventualk profit and then the accountancy and marketing beaurocracies lead to a concentration of suppliers who reach price parity.
The Right in norway have been promoting a more "flexible " legislature on work contracts. The3y want to move away from permanecny because it has a percieved risk and cost for especially small businesses, many of whose owner-managers are politically active in the Right. Befo0re the oil price crash, their propaganda used the approach of getting the quite large number of high-school-drop-outs into work by allowing them to work a contract of a whole year without any permancy, instead of today where often employers like McDonald'd franchises dispatch trainees at the 6 month stage to avoid 'on costs' of permancy, such as pension payments.
The new Right in Norway went fishing for a problem to cure with job insecurity for the majority, when the economy was still growing more than the UK or US in % terms and unemployment was low. Now with rising unemployment they can find an excuse to introduce this and render the Norwegian model redundnatnt thus locking more people into renting and feeding the captial property economy for longer time before they eventually find or negotiate permancy, or if banks in future will be more flexible on loaning to people without secure contracts.
This has been the greatest lie of the Neoliberals for 30 years + - that job insecurity is a flexibility which creates more jobs, wealth and well being. Neoliberal countries also have far higher rates of unemployment and especially "underemployment" than liberal scandinavia and social democrat Germany. To some extent permancy in Norway is merely a perception, but it is also an important part of working culture and probably in fact works to promote moderation in wage demands. Employees are loyal to employers and not job shopping relative to their US compatriots. Consumer confidence is kept high by the perception in the lending supply chain that there is a degree of protection.
Neoliberalism has just failed to make life better for the eaverag worker and indeed made life a lot worse in many ways for some poorer workers. The aervage income person works in IT/internet, finance admin' or Supply Chain now and is expected to work overtime with no additional salary yet also has no real job security and can be repossessed and out in the street within a few weeks of being fired. A recent wide reaching financial investigation revealed that over 100 million Americans have no more than 1000 dollars in savings money.
. Now in fact it is its' dieing throws and much like Hitler in the bunker, is demanding more of its followers and exploiting more of its populace in attempt to prove itself right and the natural order of things. Also like Hitler, in an well trodden road to popular scapegoatism, it has turned to blaming ethnic peoples in society for the ills of the average white western worker, thus the rise of Trump in the USA-.
Unfortunetly there is the unavoidable fact that progress in soceity is inevitably linked to taxation and national investment, be that by kings and churches or by governments and local authorities of today. It has had thirty years to work and has failed the average and most proliferate of workers, while it has marhginalised the old, the infirm and the metnally ill. It has rewarded the top third of society and created many mechanisms of meta-democracy where by the rich can evade taxes and coproatrions can evade environmental and social repsonsibility.
Like Communism and most other extreme idologies which concentrate power in the hands of an unelected few, Neoliberalism will eventually be overthrown. It creates too much inequity in society that eventually enough of the population will feel disinfranchised and rebel against it via the ballot box or by more radical non party political action. However before it does this, it will extend its reach to countries like Norway with the same appeal of lower tax and personal responsibility. They will claim that your hard earned money is being sqaundered on the poor and undeserving who do not work as hard as you. They will appeal to the xenophbia inherent in any mono ethnic population.They will use government to communicate propoganda on the effectiveness of privatising public utilities which will then cost the consumer and tax payer more over time, as we see with the UK railways anad health proviswion. In the end they will fail to deliver anything for the average worker here than the misery of uncertain employment. Norway, will you take that road?
Viser innlegg med etiketten thatcher. Vis alle innlegg
Viser innlegg med etiketten thatcher. Vis alle innlegg
mandag 18. april 2016
søndag 7. februar 2016
Listhaug's Own Falklands War - Populism on a Plate
There are some tantalising parrallels to be drawn between the current politics around the assylum seeker and economic migrants crisis in Norway, and those now far off days of the Falklands' war.
Thatcher is widely praised for transforming the British economy, which you can absolute argue is like saying George Washington fought the war for independence single handed. In fact the very opposite of a transformation and positive upswing in the economy played out in the first four years of Tory rule after 1979. The economy was in recession, and it became deeper as companies closed shop in the UK. Private industry had been running out of innovation and the will to manage for years, and in part that was due to the power of the unions in post war Britain. With a tighter fiscal policy band a western world recession in general, manufacturing industry in the UK gave up en masse in this period.
The New Right Party That Nearly Failed
ITN news at ten used to run a job counter, which would show the gains and losses. Mainly it was in the red of course as companies just gave up the ghost. Massive brand names were either evapourated into a pile of bricks, or moved to the far east. There were riots in what became labelled with the misnomer, "Inner cities" which were caused by social unrest and a harder line policing against soft drugs. The Thatcherites had an admirable long term goal - to balance the books of the nation and become an international creditor.
Labour Hijacked by a Campaign Group- The CND Wilderness Years
The post war UK had become a two party system, with what today would be seen as essential socialist policies dyed in the mold from the Labour landslide of 1948. The following Tory governments, a bit like todays Høyre in Norway, had to follow the consensus which had shifted left post war, and keep public spending and tax high during the early, scary days of the cold war. By the mid 1970s though, the Labour movement had been dragged off into a kind of metademocratic movement, as did all susbequent governance has been in the UK. It was dogged by union corruption and power mongering, and would become hijacked by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament with the fall of the Callaghan government to Thatcher in the 1979 election.
So on the one side there was abhorrence to the excesses of union power, like "the dead going unburried" during the winter of discontent in 1978 and on the other hand the Labour party got a duffle coat wearing academic staunch CND man. This was still at the time of the cold war, some would say that it was a very dangerous time because soviet submarine and missile technology surpassed that of the UK, France and even the USA. A large number of WWII veterans in those years were still in work and most families had someone who had fought or been part of the war effort, while having lived through the soviet threat and the capitulation of Hungary and Czechslovakia.
Enter 'Los Malvinas'....
The world wide economy was going badly too for many dictatorships, such as the Juanta in Argentina. Two very different economies on opposite sides of the globe would soon influence each other through conflict. Thatcher would get a God Send in having the biggest nationalist political broadcast in the history of any western Democracy at a time when the UK economy was languishing. Soon we would all care deeply about a few scraggy bits of empire, some sheep farmers and a detachment of part time Royal Marine reservists way down in the Southern Hemisphere.
Back then the UK had an ageing fleeting of warships and a depleted royal naval reserve, so Thatcher was very lucky that so merchant many ships were still registerred either in the UK or countries like Bermuda where the Crown had rights to requisition them. The fleet sailed out to fight in a Falklands winter and do the dirty job of ousting the mainly poorly trained conscript army from the god forsaken islands of no economic significance to the UK.
Backed by US surveillance satelites and missile systems, the UK could wage an effective naval strategy against the Argentines, from submarines and air craft carriers, which today is still refferred to as a conflict and not a war, which is just a big PR fib. It was a remarkable achievement in some respects, more of logistics than anything else. In the closing hours of the "conflict" there were three regiments lined up to repartiate Port Stanley and end the occupation. The Para's took the glory and raised the red white and blue flag.
Parallels to the Falklands Scenario Today in Norway
In Norway now we have of course an oil economy which is over the precipice and no one knows where it will land and how hard that landing will be. Amazingly the economy grew more last year than the UK economy in percent terms of course. However the good times are over and austerity (aka someone rich caused the crisis, the poor have to pay for it) is on the cards.
Into this comes the biggest assylum-migrant crisis since world war II on Europes doorstep, and an international refugee policy which leaves the average EU/EØS citizen wondering what EU or national security actually means. Like Thatcher, we have a woman as the fuigurehead for the 'fight' against being drowned in assylum seekers and all the scare mongering that goes with that about terror and in particular, women's safety. After years of the "night ravens" being the only thing stopping wide spread sexual assualts and harrassment of girls out in Oslo, mainly perpetrated by ethnic Norwegians, the government finally cares about women's saftet. The new year attacks in Cologne fuel the flames, and the "Progress Party" (FrP) have a platform to now drive against the United Nations Charter on Refugees and the EU.
This is very much as big a deal as the Falklands war because Norwegians by in large are pretty xenophobic when it comes to people actually daring to settle in their country. Even as a white westerner, often mistaken for a "noggie" in the UK in years gone by, I find myself very discriminated against in the work place and the job market. There are a few "hissige" ( kind of means aggressive and poisonous at the same time) nationalists in every work place I think I have been in who don't like immigrants getting into the good stuff of decent wages and permanent jobs in favour of a Norwegian.
The Glow of Winning a Conflict in The Publics Eyes
Listhaug has at least eclipsed Siv Jensen, the parliamentary party leader and current finance minister (chancellor) and has attracted opinion poles in favour of her being the next prime minister. However she is stumbling around with international law, and of course Russia like any lever they can get over Norway so they are not quite playing ball. She is riding on a wave though of strong public opinion, and many otherwise liberal women who would never have voted for FrP ( and in doing so vote for the poorer working conditions their philosophy entails) have come over to back them with a massive upswing to the cost of the Labour Party here (Ap). Last years catastrophic failure in most of the key city elections is now washed away on the back of the wave with the self same 'Falklands Glow' effect.
What Really Happened in The Times of Thatcher ?
Thatcher won this 83 and 87 election and the liberalistaion of the City of London Stock Exchange meant that investors flocked to the Capital and the UK economy became bouyant also on the total relaxation of consumer credit. Boom and bust it went, but most people enjoyed higher earnings and less tax. They could carry on Union bashing, beating the Miners in 1984 and all but castrating the 1970s style union leadership. Unions became absent from many work places, and wages for lower end workers stopped keeping up with the real cost of living. Wealth grew at the same time as poverty.
The poor became the new scapegoat- the lazy folk on benefits. Unions were tarred with the brush from the winter of discontent well into the mid 1990s. Privatisation lead to above inflation rises in telephony (initially), fuel and electricity and the all important commuter rail network. Benefits are now really limnited to complete subsistance claimants, with ordinary hard working tax payers being forced to sell their capital assets if they become sick. Health is now back on the cards. The franchise between state and tax payer is broken by ideology driven by only 39% of the vote. The state now, as in the USA, collects a lot of tax to pay for the Wealth Creation in the City of London finance and commodities markets.
Nationalism - The Worn Old Weapon of the Right Wing
Nationalism is nearly always wrapped up together with politics which are punitive to manual workers and disabled people on welfare. This is because of course, national-socialism became something to react against, and socialists continued to sing the International with hands linked in the EU parliament. Post Hitler , the Left just doesn't have the taste for using and misusing nationalism and petty xenophobia, where the right can swing in and take a big new chunk of the voting masses during a crisis such as a war or mass migration.
Siv Jensen despite losing the limelight to Listhaug, could hardly hide her pleasure and gloated this week at the Oslo FrP meeting about how Norway could have the toughest assylum policy anywhere in Europe. The next very popular policy is for closed assylum centres, that is detention centres where applications are considered behind gates and fences. And what is wrong with that? It takes only a very small minority of organised criminals, terrorists or gang rapists to grab the headlines. People don't know who they are getting here. Our first traunch of well educated Syrian young men are supplemented by a shabby bunch of late teenagers who stare at us and some eye up women in an uncomfortable way. So far no problem, and the police call outs in our neighbourhood have been to the two usual wife beating drunk Norwegians and rowdy teenagers.
Media Focus, No Brainer
There is a veritable media frenzy, with Sylvi Listhaug more common a face than the Prime Minsiter and Chancellor here put together. The media love controversy, and the left just dont have anything very controversial. They have intellectually sound counter arguements which just do not get journalists salivating, be they conservatives, liberal or neutral. The FrP can lead the media Circus for the time being.
The FrP politics are also leadinng the way which other politicians have to go anyway. Close the border and move it out to the extremes of Europe, and follow the letter of the law on assylum applications being in the first land they reach. The Left here and not far away from this, but have a more subtle respect for international law and human rights. SO far they have not tried to for example, challenge the UN on prioritising families with small children from Syria as the British have, nor suggesting taking refugees with their cases approved in the camps of Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey.
There has to be a new politic in Europe not only on Border control, but on rapid repatriation and on in the first place which countries actually are safe or have safe zones where form assylum seekers are presumed economic migrants and refused if they do not meet special, political assylum criteria which are kept secret so people don't just MMS their succsesful grounds for application back. In particular we have the two 'problem lands' for exporting of 'anchor teenagers' - namely Afganistan and Somalia.
Both these countries have enough safe area to take internal refugees and the lack of access to assylum means their number will be decimated no doubt anyway, so that international aid can reach those most displaced and in need.
The Left Awaken to their Own Liberal Folly on Assylum Procedures and Weak EU Peripheral Borders
The Left here and across Europe woke up post Paris attacks and realised that the open policy was a road to the rise populist fascism, as dangerous as the late 1920s and early 30s in Germany and Spain. Closed assylum centres are actually necessary not to stem the tide of refugees, although they may stem some economic migration, but rather to appease the public and stem the tide of the new, far right amongst ordinary working people. At the same time, the Left should grasp the issues of ageing populations in Northern Europe and legislate for higher wages and access to life long re-skilling such that workers from all over Europe can retain wealth rather than it just being exported to China and to the Elite super rich as is the net result of the many years of centre right 'social democrat' policy in the EU on privatisation, errosion of remaining labour laws and cut backs in education and public services.
We saw the glee Angela Merkel had when she realised that their economy could finally have a quick fix to German women not bothering to breed in their 20s any more. Incredibly the German population has decreased by 2 million since reunification statistics were first collected. Armies of cleaners and security gaurds on low wages, while on the other hand, avoiding the need to pay Germans out of work or with old skills to retrain. Just ship 'em in from Syria. Post Paris attacks and her tone changed completely. Are we importing terrorists ? Post Cologne it hardened more- are we importing rapists ?
What about the Refugees, Why is there A Crisis?
The fact is we are importing 99% ordinary working people from Syria, who have lost their means of livelihood, their possessions and most likely their houses or entire farms to IS Assad and now Putin. They come from a country where women are not slaves and few marriages are arranged. Women can educate themselves if they or their families can pay. Women take often though a traditional role as house wife after giving birth. Not unlike the US Republican Christian Conservative view of women's roles, those who are not political leaders.
It isn't just Listhaug and her exaggerated blue-eyed water separation from the Labour Party here who are riding the wave of anti immigration sentiment. Trump too. Adolf Trump? Well he also called out Mexicans so there goes a huge vote from the self made immigrant population who mirror what his Germanic family were up to a few generations ago when they moved to the USA.
Luck and The Economy Will Maybe Not Last in the Anti Immigrant Glow
Ride the immigration back lash the FrP will, and live in the glow too just as Thatcher could after the Falklands War. Like big bang in the City, there could be some other economic miracle to pull Norway back out of the malaise of rising unemployment and falling tax revenues. Oil prices could suddenly change. Natural catastrophes or wars arise.
The move to a low-tax, low government service and low wage for the less skilled worker here will be far more painful though than the course of Thatcherism, because people here have it so very good now that they don't want to aspire to some form of 'if only taxes were lower' dream. Tax cuts in return for lower wage rises, and fewer permanent contracts may have 'worked' politically in the UK but also it has lead to a significant proportion of the UK workforce being on in-work benefits and tax-credits, which are all indirect subsidies to unscrupulous, profiteering employers mainly in retail, agriculture-food and consumer service industries which have become so dominant in the regions of the UK outside the South Eastern financial capital.
The Front Line Against Left Wing Democracy Is Norway
The FrP are a small party when Immigration is taken out of the picture in particular, and they have a skewed view of economics towards using the oil fund to compensate for the unhealty dependency on relative high barrell prices in the good years. At the same time they recieve funding from both the USA and Israel, to fight on the one hand the thorn in the side that a centre left (compared to the UK, quite socialist) country being successful, while on the other a liberal movement sympathetic to the plight of the palestian people and their exposure to ethnic cleansing and concentration zones like Gaza.
So there is a much bigger political picture than just oil money and who can give the worker most take home money and tax deductables. Norway is a never ending source of joyful comparison for Alec Salmond for example, and continues to top the world for qaulity of life, and standard of living- take your pic, Norway usually beats Canada or Switzerland, and Sweden has slumped back since its flirtation with Neo Liberalism. The high tax economy unfortunately for the Neo Liberalists, simply works better here in Norway for the majority of the people.
Media Myopia and Circus Acts
In the whole of this here in Norway it is really a big storm in the Media just as the Falkland Wars completely and utterly dominated all forms of print and broadcast media in 82-83. A Left which are concerned about international law and human rights, and are not that far off the conservative prime minister's opinions at least, just don't make for interesting sound bites, headlines, retweets and Likes/comments. Social media comments are more extreme because that small minority on right and left are far more vocal there than the masses, and in fact the polarisation just turns people off.
The main net effect of all the FrP being able to grab the headlines and have a spike in their populatity by being the ONLY voice the media will use time presenting. They continue to play their double communications- wanting to go further, but constrained by the last heavy legislation of the UN and the last labour Stoltenberg 8 years. Wanting to be strong on immigration, but wanting also to deliver their small business members a new service workforce of cheaper labour.
The Economy, Stoopid
At the end of the day "the economy, stupid" will tell before the next general election, which will suddenly seem like a long haul for the blue-eyed-blue government when this crisis is solved. The view on the economy here is very much more the here and now than the American Dream. It is what is our household inflation, how much do we need to cover the mortgage, can the wife go back to full time work, do I have permanent contract to get a new mortgage... and so on.
This is a light mental exercise for Norwegians in relation ot labour laws and that 'evil' of society here, fair wages on national tariffs. An unworkable policy in the USA and to erroded in its homeland Sweden, it ensures wealth retention and distribution here while management also have to concentrate on productivity and training rather than avoiding pay rises. Even many FrP and Høyre voters are in trade unions and are vocal when it comes to wage negotiations.
The Little Problem with Democratic Socialism Actaully Working...
FrP want to move to basically a flawed and largely failed UK-USA neo liberal model of low tax, low wage, low benefits 'economy' with a two tiered society as the result. This is because their followers are the greedy prodgeny of past generations made fat on strong labour laws and a killer good set of policies and taxes to both generate massive wealth, but also retain and distribute that from the N. Sea throughout society here. Along with the Neo Lib cut-and-paste, the FrP have some odd socialist policies, such as massive motorway building and a better deal for the poorest pensioners....both of which are on the back burner mysteriously enough.
The problem for the New Right here is that Norway was never in the large scale post industrial decline to which politicians could invent solutions for based on anti-employee ideology in the UK and USA. Niother has it had the need for large public borrowing to fund social welfare programmes and infrastructural renewal. Public services are by in large very effective here, and the New Right have to scramble around to find the odd sloth or stupid set of regulations.
When it suits them here. Now they are liberalising, derugalising and decentralising welfare services (NAV) while they are doing the opposite in education. In trying to achieve better PISA figures they turn a blind eye, as do the UK conservatives, to the leaders in the world the Finns, who have a practical and human centred system for both teachers and pupils which both addresses basic standards and caters for the individuals needs at the point of delivery. Free teachers though to the New Right are little socialist preachers, who need tieing down in heavy beaurocracy aka league tables and continual published assessments. The FInns rather piss all over their ideology with a practical approach which focuses on the skills of the teacher adn their ability to balance class with marking and preparation in the working day.
The Longest Party Political Broadcast in History
Back to the Falklands War though. Thatcher received the biggest, longest party political broadcast in history and the country were on the right side of a war again, not in a grey area as in Ulster or later in the Gulf. In stark contrast to Vietnam which dragged on and had only losers, the Falklands was short, sweet and the british forces could show their professionalism in the face of a fascist conscript army.
She won the election taken in the full tactical glow of the victory later in 1983, with the biggest majority since the Labour Landslide of 1945 (which was 2 seats bigger at 146 incidentally). She was able to ride the wave of consumer credit and deregulation of the stock exchange (coupled to major new computer technology it must be added on a non ideological point) and the resulting blossoming of the service economy in the Southern part of the UK, while the Regions with their subsidised coal mines were tackled in the conflict of 1984-5 - the Miner's Strike, where once again she could appear as the moral victor in the medias new blue lime light. Manufacturing had a chance to introduce massive investment in productivity, what was left of it. I have in fact no freinds in the UK now who work in manufacturing, they all bar one work in service or light industries. Most people sell each other insurance, cafe lattes and BMW servicing in the uk now it seems. That's fine as long as its not Keynsian circles which are underpinning a cappacino service economy.
No Left Wing Enemy Within
There are no real common 'enemies within' here in Norway, even though there are many on Social Media who will vehemently accuse Labour of the utter irresponsibility which lead to such a high standard of living for the average man, high benefits but also negligible unemployment in the good years for oil.
The unions are reasonable and cooperate with the NHO, the Noggie version of the CBI, on many issues including moderation in pay rises. Public health has waiting lists, but a strong level of service by in large free at delivery. Most of all people at the lower end of the labour market earn enough to buy a house and a car and have a good life, which is something even quite a few right wing freinds of mine mean is so much better than other countries. Privatisations of public services have been often unsuccsessful, as with the Norwegian version of Railtrack and elderly care in Oslo- Akershus.
The State as a Silent Share Holder: The Oil Fund
The state are a major share holder of course, and a pateient one, in the possibly unique norwegian model of the national pension fund , domestic and international in components, aka the Oil Fund, but it operates just as that, a hands off pension management fund which politicians cannot play command economy with. As long as Statoil are highly profitable to be in longterm, so it makes sense to invest in the home grown megafirm. The airport express train is private, but once again owned by the fund, somethign the ideological FrP want to shift....the most likely buyer so far being the Chinese state bank. The fund though can be raided to balance the state budget, and many in the country syupport the FrP because the original wording of the domestic fund was to invest also in infrastructure, something which never happened.
The international fund totally eclipsed the national fund by the 1980s and it is linked also to EU and other stock market regulations relating to such large state investments. Labour and the Conservatives here are both very glad to see the fund rising in value. However ironically enough, it was Labour who took the bull by the horns and followed the EU model to private pensions as a considerable portion of retirement plans for those under 50 now. Ourside Norway this is seen as a social democratic and conservative policy, here it is a reason to not vote labour and vote for the anti immigrant FrP.
Thatcherism Is a Mere Nibbler in Norway
The Neo Liberal ideology is there of course, but it follows a well trodden path to lower wages, higher costs for consumers for the benefit of the upper third of society and the perceived 'we're strivers who deserve more' for part of the middle layer. Only that middle layer is really just voting anti immigrant in the poles right now. It will be at least 18 months maybe from the end, or resolution for the refugee crisis. It isn't going to be a party political broadcast for long, and Thatcher knew 4 years was enough (there are fixed periods in Norway and of course the UK now) , the chips could be cashed in asap the dust settled from the War with the last SHips home and the last flag waved on the dock at Portsmouth.
The FrP can expect to bask in the sun for a time, until people start demanding action on what they actually promiesed- roads, and until people get bored and burn up their redundacny packages and 2 year spell of unemployment benefits. Neo Liberal policies are popular amongst only a minoirty of small business owners and higher waged earners. Immigration only stretches so far over the wound of poorer working conditions and lower pay ahead if their policies such as private monopolisation of rail routes goes ahead.
Also the media will hopefully tire of all this refugee frenzy, and get a sense for the dammage misrepresentative headline stories ( "pledges to fight for IS", "molests drunk Olso 17 year old" ....you know it is all coming) cause for society in its paranoia over what is very little more than some unusually sun tanned faces walking down the street, playing football and getting jobs in warehouses.
Thatcher is widely praised for transforming the British economy, which you can absolute argue is like saying George Washington fought the war for independence single handed. In fact the very opposite of a transformation and positive upswing in the economy played out in the first four years of Tory rule after 1979. The economy was in recession, and it became deeper as companies closed shop in the UK. Private industry had been running out of innovation and the will to manage for years, and in part that was due to the power of the unions in post war Britain. With a tighter fiscal policy band a western world recession in general, manufacturing industry in the UK gave up en masse in this period.
The New Right Party That Nearly Failed
ITN news at ten used to run a job counter, which would show the gains and losses. Mainly it was in the red of course as companies just gave up the ghost. Massive brand names were either evapourated into a pile of bricks, or moved to the far east. There were riots in what became labelled with the misnomer, "Inner cities" which were caused by social unrest and a harder line policing against soft drugs. The Thatcherites had an admirable long term goal - to balance the books of the nation and become an international creditor.
Labour Hijacked by a Campaign Group- The CND Wilderness Years
The post war UK had become a two party system, with what today would be seen as essential socialist policies dyed in the mold from the Labour landslide of 1948. The following Tory governments, a bit like todays Høyre in Norway, had to follow the consensus which had shifted left post war, and keep public spending and tax high during the early, scary days of the cold war. By the mid 1970s though, the Labour movement had been dragged off into a kind of metademocratic movement, as did all susbequent governance has been in the UK. It was dogged by union corruption and power mongering, and would become hijacked by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament with the fall of the Callaghan government to Thatcher in the 1979 election.
So on the one side there was abhorrence to the excesses of union power, like "the dead going unburried" during the winter of discontent in 1978 and on the other hand the Labour party got a duffle coat wearing academic staunch CND man. This was still at the time of the cold war, some would say that it was a very dangerous time because soviet submarine and missile technology surpassed that of the UK, France and even the USA. A large number of WWII veterans in those years were still in work and most families had someone who had fought or been part of the war effort, while having lived through the soviet threat and the capitulation of Hungary and Czechslovakia.
Enter 'Los Malvinas'....
The world wide economy was going badly too for many dictatorships, such as the Juanta in Argentina. Two very different economies on opposite sides of the globe would soon influence each other through conflict. Thatcher would get a God Send in having the biggest nationalist political broadcast in the history of any western Democracy at a time when the UK economy was languishing. Soon we would all care deeply about a few scraggy bits of empire, some sheep farmers and a detachment of part time Royal Marine reservists way down in the Southern Hemisphere.
Back then the UK had an ageing fleeting of warships and a depleted royal naval reserve, so Thatcher was very lucky that so merchant many ships were still registerred either in the UK or countries like Bermuda where the Crown had rights to requisition them. The fleet sailed out to fight in a Falklands winter and do the dirty job of ousting the mainly poorly trained conscript army from the god forsaken islands of no economic significance to the UK.
Backed by US surveillance satelites and missile systems, the UK could wage an effective naval strategy against the Argentines, from submarines and air craft carriers, which today is still refferred to as a conflict and not a war, which is just a big PR fib. It was a remarkable achievement in some respects, more of logistics than anything else. In the closing hours of the "conflict" there were three regiments lined up to repartiate Port Stanley and end the occupation. The Para's took the glory and raised the red white and blue flag.
Parallels to the Falklands Scenario Today in Norway
In Norway now we have of course an oil economy which is over the precipice and no one knows where it will land and how hard that landing will be. Amazingly the economy grew more last year than the UK economy in percent terms of course. However the good times are over and austerity (aka someone rich caused the crisis, the poor have to pay for it) is on the cards.
Into this comes the biggest assylum-migrant crisis since world war II on Europes doorstep, and an international refugee policy which leaves the average EU/EØS citizen wondering what EU or national security actually means. Like Thatcher, we have a woman as the fuigurehead for the 'fight' against being drowned in assylum seekers and all the scare mongering that goes with that about terror and in particular, women's safety. After years of the "night ravens" being the only thing stopping wide spread sexual assualts and harrassment of girls out in Oslo, mainly perpetrated by ethnic Norwegians, the government finally cares about women's saftet. The new year attacks in Cologne fuel the flames, and the "Progress Party" (FrP) have a platform to now drive against the United Nations Charter on Refugees and the EU.
This is very much as big a deal as the Falklands war because Norwegians by in large are pretty xenophobic when it comes to people actually daring to settle in their country. Even as a white westerner, often mistaken for a "noggie" in the UK in years gone by, I find myself very discriminated against in the work place and the job market. There are a few "hissige" ( kind of means aggressive and poisonous at the same time) nationalists in every work place I think I have been in who don't like immigrants getting into the good stuff of decent wages and permanent jobs in favour of a Norwegian.
The Glow of Winning a Conflict in The Publics Eyes
Listhaug has at least eclipsed Siv Jensen, the parliamentary party leader and current finance minister (chancellor) and has attracted opinion poles in favour of her being the next prime minister. However she is stumbling around with international law, and of course Russia like any lever they can get over Norway so they are not quite playing ball. She is riding on a wave though of strong public opinion, and many otherwise liberal women who would never have voted for FrP ( and in doing so vote for the poorer working conditions their philosophy entails) have come over to back them with a massive upswing to the cost of the Labour Party here (Ap). Last years catastrophic failure in most of the key city elections is now washed away on the back of the wave with the self same 'Falklands Glow' effect.
What Really Happened in The Times of Thatcher ?
Thatcher won this 83 and 87 election and the liberalistaion of the City of London Stock Exchange meant that investors flocked to the Capital and the UK economy became bouyant also on the total relaxation of consumer credit. Boom and bust it went, but most people enjoyed higher earnings and less tax. They could carry on Union bashing, beating the Miners in 1984 and all but castrating the 1970s style union leadership. Unions became absent from many work places, and wages for lower end workers stopped keeping up with the real cost of living. Wealth grew at the same time as poverty.
The poor became the new scapegoat- the lazy folk on benefits. Unions were tarred with the brush from the winter of discontent well into the mid 1990s. Privatisation lead to above inflation rises in telephony (initially), fuel and electricity and the all important commuter rail network. Benefits are now really limnited to complete subsistance claimants, with ordinary hard working tax payers being forced to sell their capital assets if they become sick. Health is now back on the cards. The franchise between state and tax payer is broken by ideology driven by only 39% of the vote. The state now, as in the USA, collects a lot of tax to pay for the Wealth Creation in the City of London finance and commodities markets.
Nationalism - The Worn Old Weapon of the Right Wing
Nationalism is nearly always wrapped up together with politics which are punitive to manual workers and disabled people on welfare. This is because of course, national-socialism became something to react against, and socialists continued to sing the International with hands linked in the EU parliament. Post Hitler , the Left just doesn't have the taste for using and misusing nationalism and petty xenophobia, where the right can swing in and take a big new chunk of the voting masses during a crisis such as a war or mass migration.
Siv Jensen despite losing the limelight to Listhaug, could hardly hide her pleasure and gloated this week at the Oslo FrP meeting about how Norway could have the toughest assylum policy anywhere in Europe. The next very popular policy is for closed assylum centres, that is detention centres where applications are considered behind gates and fences. And what is wrong with that? It takes only a very small minority of organised criminals, terrorists or gang rapists to grab the headlines. People don't know who they are getting here. Our first traunch of well educated Syrian young men are supplemented by a shabby bunch of late teenagers who stare at us and some eye up women in an uncomfortable way. So far no problem, and the police call outs in our neighbourhood have been to the two usual wife beating drunk Norwegians and rowdy teenagers.
Media Focus, No Brainer
There is a veritable media frenzy, with Sylvi Listhaug more common a face than the Prime Minsiter and Chancellor here put together. The media love controversy, and the left just dont have anything very controversial. They have intellectually sound counter arguements which just do not get journalists salivating, be they conservatives, liberal or neutral. The FrP can lead the media Circus for the time being.
The FrP politics are also leadinng the way which other politicians have to go anyway. Close the border and move it out to the extremes of Europe, and follow the letter of the law on assylum applications being in the first land they reach. The Left here and not far away from this, but have a more subtle respect for international law and human rights. SO far they have not tried to for example, challenge the UN on prioritising families with small children from Syria as the British have, nor suggesting taking refugees with their cases approved in the camps of Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey.
There has to be a new politic in Europe not only on Border control, but on rapid repatriation and on in the first place which countries actually are safe or have safe zones where form assylum seekers are presumed economic migrants and refused if they do not meet special, political assylum criteria which are kept secret so people don't just MMS their succsesful grounds for application back. In particular we have the two 'problem lands' for exporting of 'anchor teenagers' - namely Afganistan and Somalia.
Both these countries have enough safe area to take internal refugees and the lack of access to assylum means their number will be decimated no doubt anyway, so that international aid can reach those most displaced and in need.
The Left Awaken to their Own Liberal Folly on Assylum Procedures and Weak EU Peripheral Borders
The Left here and across Europe woke up post Paris attacks and realised that the open policy was a road to the rise populist fascism, as dangerous as the late 1920s and early 30s in Germany and Spain. Closed assylum centres are actually necessary not to stem the tide of refugees, although they may stem some economic migration, but rather to appease the public and stem the tide of the new, far right amongst ordinary working people. At the same time, the Left should grasp the issues of ageing populations in Northern Europe and legislate for higher wages and access to life long re-skilling such that workers from all over Europe can retain wealth rather than it just being exported to China and to the Elite super rich as is the net result of the many years of centre right 'social democrat' policy in the EU on privatisation, errosion of remaining labour laws and cut backs in education and public services.
We saw the glee Angela Merkel had when she realised that their economy could finally have a quick fix to German women not bothering to breed in their 20s any more. Incredibly the German population has decreased by 2 million since reunification statistics were first collected. Armies of cleaners and security gaurds on low wages, while on the other hand, avoiding the need to pay Germans out of work or with old skills to retrain. Just ship 'em in from Syria. Post Paris attacks and her tone changed completely. Are we importing terrorists ? Post Cologne it hardened more- are we importing rapists ?
What about the Refugees, Why is there A Crisis?
The fact is we are importing 99% ordinary working people from Syria, who have lost their means of livelihood, their possessions and most likely their houses or entire farms to IS Assad and now Putin. They come from a country where women are not slaves and few marriages are arranged. Women can educate themselves if they or their families can pay. Women take often though a traditional role as house wife after giving birth. Not unlike the US Republican Christian Conservative view of women's roles, those who are not political leaders.
It isn't just Listhaug and her exaggerated blue-eyed water separation from the Labour Party here who are riding the wave of anti immigration sentiment. Trump too. Adolf Trump? Well he also called out Mexicans so there goes a huge vote from the self made immigrant population who mirror what his Germanic family were up to a few generations ago when they moved to the USA.
Luck and The Economy Will Maybe Not Last in the Anti Immigrant Glow
Ride the immigration back lash the FrP will, and live in the glow too just as Thatcher could after the Falklands War. Like big bang in the City, there could be some other economic miracle to pull Norway back out of the malaise of rising unemployment and falling tax revenues. Oil prices could suddenly change. Natural catastrophes or wars arise.
The move to a low-tax, low government service and low wage for the less skilled worker here will be far more painful though than the course of Thatcherism, because people here have it so very good now that they don't want to aspire to some form of 'if only taxes were lower' dream. Tax cuts in return for lower wage rises, and fewer permanent contracts may have 'worked' politically in the UK but also it has lead to a significant proportion of the UK workforce being on in-work benefits and tax-credits, which are all indirect subsidies to unscrupulous, profiteering employers mainly in retail, agriculture-food and consumer service industries which have become so dominant in the regions of the UK outside the South Eastern financial capital.
The Front Line Against Left Wing Democracy Is Norway
The FrP are a small party when Immigration is taken out of the picture in particular, and they have a skewed view of economics towards using the oil fund to compensate for the unhealty dependency on relative high barrell prices in the good years. At the same time they recieve funding from both the USA and Israel, to fight on the one hand the thorn in the side that a centre left (compared to the UK, quite socialist) country being successful, while on the other a liberal movement sympathetic to the plight of the palestian people and their exposure to ethnic cleansing and concentration zones like Gaza.
So there is a much bigger political picture than just oil money and who can give the worker most take home money and tax deductables. Norway is a never ending source of joyful comparison for Alec Salmond for example, and continues to top the world for qaulity of life, and standard of living- take your pic, Norway usually beats Canada or Switzerland, and Sweden has slumped back since its flirtation with Neo Liberalism. The high tax economy unfortunately for the Neo Liberalists, simply works better here in Norway for the majority of the people.
Media Myopia and Circus Acts
In the whole of this here in Norway it is really a big storm in the Media just as the Falkland Wars completely and utterly dominated all forms of print and broadcast media in 82-83. A Left which are concerned about international law and human rights, and are not that far off the conservative prime minister's opinions at least, just don't make for interesting sound bites, headlines, retweets and Likes/comments. Social media comments are more extreme because that small minority on right and left are far more vocal there than the masses, and in fact the polarisation just turns people off.
The main net effect of all the FrP being able to grab the headlines and have a spike in their populatity by being the ONLY voice the media will use time presenting. They continue to play their double communications- wanting to go further, but constrained by the last heavy legislation of the UN and the last labour Stoltenberg 8 years. Wanting to be strong on immigration, but wanting also to deliver their small business members a new service workforce of cheaper labour.
The Economy, Stoopid
At the end of the day "the economy, stupid" will tell before the next general election, which will suddenly seem like a long haul for the blue-eyed-blue government when this crisis is solved. The view on the economy here is very much more the here and now than the American Dream. It is what is our household inflation, how much do we need to cover the mortgage, can the wife go back to full time work, do I have permanent contract to get a new mortgage... and so on.
This is a light mental exercise for Norwegians in relation ot labour laws and that 'evil' of society here, fair wages on national tariffs. An unworkable policy in the USA and to erroded in its homeland Sweden, it ensures wealth retention and distribution here while management also have to concentrate on productivity and training rather than avoiding pay rises. Even many FrP and Høyre voters are in trade unions and are vocal when it comes to wage negotiations.
The Little Problem with Democratic Socialism Actaully Working...
FrP want to move to basically a flawed and largely failed UK-USA neo liberal model of low tax, low wage, low benefits 'economy' with a two tiered society as the result. This is because their followers are the greedy prodgeny of past generations made fat on strong labour laws and a killer good set of policies and taxes to both generate massive wealth, but also retain and distribute that from the N. Sea throughout society here. Along with the Neo Lib cut-and-paste, the FrP have some odd socialist policies, such as massive motorway building and a better deal for the poorest pensioners....both of which are on the back burner mysteriously enough.
The problem for the New Right here is that Norway was never in the large scale post industrial decline to which politicians could invent solutions for based on anti-employee ideology in the UK and USA. Niother has it had the need for large public borrowing to fund social welfare programmes and infrastructural renewal. Public services are by in large very effective here, and the New Right have to scramble around to find the odd sloth or stupid set of regulations.
When it suits them here. Now they are liberalising, derugalising and decentralising welfare services (NAV) while they are doing the opposite in education. In trying to achieve better PISA figures they turn a blind eye, as do the UK conservatives, to the leaders in the world the Finns, who have a practical and human centred system for both teachers and pupils which both addresses basic standards and caters for the individuals needs at the point of delivery. Free teachers though to the New Right are little socialist preachers, who need tieing down in heavy beaurocracy aka league tables and continual published assessments. The FInns rather piss all over their ideology with a practical approach which focuses on the skills of the teacher adn their ability to balance class with marking and preparation in the working day.
The Longest Party Political Broadcast in History
Back to the Falklands War though. Thatcher received the biggest, longest party political broadcast in history and the country were on the right side of a war again, not in a grey area as in Ulster or later in the Gulf. In stark contrast to Vietnam which dragged on and had only losers, the Falklands was short, sweet and the british forces could show their professionalism in the face of a fascist conscript army.
She won the election taken in the full tactical glow of the victory later in 1983, with the biggest majority since the Labour Landslide of 1945 (which was 2 seats bigger at 146 incidentally). She was able to ride the wave of consumer credit and deregulation of the stock exchange (coupled to major new computer technology it must be added on a non ideological point) and the resulting blossoming of the service economy in the Southern part of the UK, while the Regions with their subsidised coal mines were tackled in the conflict of 1984-5 - the Miner's Strike, where once again she could appear as the moral victor in the medias new blue lime light. Manufacturing had a chance to introduce massive investment in productivity, what was left of it. I have in fact no freinds in the UK now who work in manufacturing, they all bar one work in service or light industries. Most people sell each other insurance, cafe lattes and BMW servicing in the uk now it seems. That's fine as long as its not Keynsian circles which are underpinning a cappacino service economy.
No Left Wing Enemy Within
There are no real common 'enemies within' here in Norway, even though there are many on Social Media who will vehemently accuse Labour of the utter irresponsibility which lead to such a high standard of living for the average man, high benefits but also negligible unemployment in the good years for oil.
The unions are reasonable and cooperate with the NHO, the Noggie version of the CBI, on many issues including moderation in pay rises. Public health has waiting lists, but a strong level of service by in large free at delivery. Most of all people at the lower end of the labour market earn enough to buy a house and a car and have a good life, which is something even quite a few right wing freinds of mine mean is so much better than other countries. Privatisations of public services have been often unsuccsessful, as with the Norwegian version of Railtrack and elderly care in Oslo- Akershus.
The State as a Silent Share Holder: The Oil Fund
The state are a major share holder of course, and a pateient one, in the possibly unique norwegian model of the national pension fund , domestic and international in components, aka the Oil Fund, but it operates just as that, a hands off pension management fund which politicians cannot play command economy with. As long as Statoil are highly profitable to be in longterm, so it makes sense to invest in the home grown megafirm. The airport express train is private, but once again owned by the fund, somethign the ideological FrP want to shift....the most likely buyer so far being the Chinese state bank. The fund though can be raided to balance the state budget, and many in the country syupport the FrP because the original wording of the domestic fund was to invest also in infrastructure, something which never happened.
The international fund totally eclipsed the national fund by the 1980s and it is linked also to EU and other stock market regulations relating to such large state investments. Labour and the Conservatives here are both very glad to see the fund rising in value. However ironically enough, it was Labour who took the bull by the horns and followed the EU model to private pensions as a considerable portion of retirement plans for those under 50 now. Ourside Norway this is seen as a social democratic and conservative policy, here it is a reason to not vote labour and vote for the anti immigrant FrP.
Thatcherism Is a Mere Nibbler in Norway
The Neo Liberal ideology is there of course, but it follows a well trodden path to lower wages, higher costs for consumers for the benefit of the upper third of society and the perceived 'we're strivers who deserve more' for part of the middle layer. Only that middle layer is really just voting anti immigrant in the poles right now. It will be at least 18 months maybe from the end, or resolution for the refugee crisis. It isn't going to be a party political broadcast for long, and Thatcher knew 4 years was enough (there are fixed periods in Norway and of course the UK now) , the chips could be cashed in asap the dust settled from the War with the last SHips home and the last flag waved on the dock at Portsmouth.
The FrP can expect to bask in the sun for a time, until people start demanding action on what they actually promiesed- roads, and until people get bored and burn up their redundacny packages and 2 year spell of unemployment benefits. Neo Liberal policies are popular amongst only a minoirty of small business owners and higher waged earners. Immigration only stretches so far over the wound of poorer working conditions and lower pay ahead if their policies such as private monopolisation of rail routes goes ahead.
Also the media will hopefully tire of all this refugee frenzy, and get a sense for the dammage misrepresentative headline stories ( "pledges to fight for IS", "molests drunk Olso 17 year old" ....you know it is all coming) cause for society in its paranoia over what is very little more than some unusually sun tanned faces walking down the street, playing football and getting jobs in warehouses.
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