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Swedish PM announces removal of two gov ministers in response to no-confidence motion
- Thread starter LordOfLore
- Start date
hydrophilic attack
Member
Reasonable response. Those two ministers seem to have made the most obvious mistakes. Even some members of the Opposition questioned the suggestion of outing the defense minister.
Important for the government is that keeping the defense minister signals that he's not willing to cave completely to opposition demands. Guess we'll have a future chicken race to look forward to to see if the opposition insists on removing the defense minister as well, initiating a process that could leave us without a government
Important for the government is that keeping the defense minister signals that he's not willing to cave completely to opposition demands. Guess we'll have a future chicken race to look forward to to see if the opposition insists on removing the defense minister as well, initiating a process that could leave us without a government
BlackLagoon
Member
Congress has passed motions of no confidence before, but they are just symbolic and non-binding. They do not have any power, unlike in parliamentary countries.
hydrophilic attack
Member
Also announced: the minister for public health is out. He was on sick leave for work-related stress issues, but has now officially exited the government
They do have impeachment which is similar, but I think it can only be used against the president , and not individual cabinet members? Also, in case of an impeachment, there is no mechanism for snap elections in the American constitution. Instead, there's an order of succession which ensures that power stays with the president's party even if impeachment is successful
They do have impeachment which is similar, but I think it can only be used against the president , and not individual cabinet members? Also, in case of an impeachment, there is no mechanism for snap elections in the American constitution. Instead, there's an order of succession which ensures that power stays with the president's party even if impeachment is successful
They have a strong separation of executive and legislature
BlackLagoon
Member
Many parliamentary countries have impeachment as well, to remove people like supreme court justices or (ceremonial) presidents who cannot be fired through normal means. Sweden used to have the option of impeachment until 1975. Its pretty different from no confidence since all the latter requires is a simple majority vote.
The Social Democrats probably took the best decision they could've in this shitstorm, and I'm glad the defence minister still remains. Though the KD buffoon Thor will continue with the no-confidence vote against him.
I've never been particularly blue in my entire life and tend to surround myself with right-wingers in many shapes and forms. Yet my constant impression from all of those on the right (incl. my friends) seem to house a deep, utterly irrational hatred for any of the leftist parties, and it has become extremely infuriating the last two-three years. The tone of the political discourse in Sweden has dropped like a rock with people like Hanif Bali, and even guys like Tino entering the fray, and the humanism previously present in Swedish politics has been thrown out of the window in order for careerists to do everything in their power to... gain the governmental power. It shows in the Alliance's willingness to create a political crisis now by irrationally trying to pull down the defence minister as well.
I've never been particularly blue in my entire life and tend to surround myself with right-wingers in many shapes and forms. Yet my constant impression from all of those on the right (incl. my friends) seem to house a deep, utterly irrational hatred for any of the leftist parties, and it has become extremely infuriating the last two-three years. The tone of the political discourse in Sweden has dropped like a rock with people like Hanif Bali, and even guys like Tino entering the fray, and the humanism previously present in Swedish politics has been thrown out of the window in order for careerists to do everything in their power to... gain the governmental power. It shows in the Alliance's willingness to create a political crisis now by irrationally trying to pull down the defence minister as well.
hydrophilic attack
Member
Are these people you know from relatively rich families? High taxes tend to do that to rich folks
Yep, and it's mainly about the taxes like you say, rarely any other arguments. I come from an immigrant family, grew up in the ghetto and ended up studying one of the "flashier" university programmes in Sweden and thus got to know most of these people.
As some say, "jag kan ha lämnat betongen, men betongen lämnar aldrig mig." Which means I've always had a bit of an outsider perspective when it comes to Swedish politics.
d00d3n
Member
The rich families in Sweden secretly love the social democrats. They keep the capital taxes at internationally competitive/low levels, tax the work of the middle class at brutal rates to finance the government, and offer stability over time. The social democrats also have a tendency to describe said brutally taxed middle class, who in practice don't have much more economic muscle than the working class, as rich, though, which I guess is what you are doing as well ...
it's polarization and I agree it's annoying. I vote right when it comes to Swedish politics but I find the whole notion of this divide on a personal level to be unproductive and useless. Tell a person you know is left "hey you are on the right aren't you" and he'll be offended and upset with you(and vice-versa with a rightist). That tells me I'm dealing with a person who has never really thought about these things, which is true for almost everyone. I'm all for free health care, free education and UBI. Those are clearly leftist positions. I also happen to think that the post structuralist self effacing moral relativism and left-imposed taboo on even discussing immigration(which has seeped over to all but the far right) is reprehensible - a position that is more to the right. I don't think the state should have a monopoly on alcohol and I think they have fully proven themselves to be incompetent at running SJ(and on a local level SL in Stockholm), again more right than left. I think income taxes for the middle class should be slashed and balanced out with heavy inheritance taxation, though i'm not sure where on the spectrum that would fall. More than anything I'm upset with how socialist ideology has completely ruined our schools and education(uni is still fine though) - which is probably the one issue where I lean the most right. Then again I'm all for LGBT rights and decriminalization of drugs though I attribute those more to not being an idiot rather than ideology. The list goes on but the point is I've thought about those things and I can honestly say that I don't identify with any political ideology or coalition. I try to think hard about each issue instead of buying into ideological packages. I wish more people would do the same.
As for being rich in sweden. For whatever reason, my engineer friends who have 500 k SEK in student loans and make 35k a month are considered "rich" while construction workers who make just as much if not more with no student loans are somehow part of the proletariat and are being shit on by society. None of that makes any sense.
It's almost impossible to become rich by working in sweden. You either inherit or become an entrepreneur.
yup, I didn't even vote in last election. Found both to be weak and reprehensible.
Did he announce on Twitter as well?
Forgive my obvious Swedish political ignorance and bluntness, but were they both actually bullshit? Or is it like "both sides" in the U.S. where one was completely reprehensible and the other was decent, but you didn't get everything you want in an instant?
Forgive my obvious Swedish political ignorance and bluntness, but were they both actually bullshit? Or is it like "both sides" in the U.S. where one was completely reprehensible and the other was decent, but you didn't get everything you want in an instant?
It was like a live twitter event in front of the press, like a conference. It's actually really cool. The benefit of this new format is more specificity, and they abolished a character limit on their statements.
That and the growing sentiment among the right to cooperate with SD just to form a majority coalition. It's disgusting.
No, Swedish politics is not as black-or-white as US politics at all. All parties in the two alliances serve valid points, it's just that party leaders for all parties suck ass currently.
There are 8 parties that are viable candidates for parliament in Sweden, 9 if you include FI. Not all parties are part of the two blocks, and not all parties within the blocks agree on all counts.
The "both sides" argument has even less weight in Swedish politics than it has in the U.S.
For me personally, I really really don't want the Left party, FI or the Green Party in a government. I think they are lunatics that should be kept as far away from power as possible. While SD(the racist party) are more reprehensible I think the Left party actually would do more long lasting damage if they had all the power. As for the social democrats, if it weren't for the above I could possibly vote for them. I don't like them but I can be flexible. With the right, I felt they didn't use the past eight years to push the country in the direction I wanted. Additionally I hated how they let the left shut down any discussion on immigration, thus in some part enabling SD to grow and become popular.
The gap between the blocks in practice is almost negligible though.
And none of those parties appealed to me.
Lol, are you my lost identical twin? That's basically my opinion of Swedish politics as well. Have voted for all parties except SD, Left party, FI and green party. But i tend to vote right-wing over socialdemocrats.
I think most swedes are like that. Even die hard social democrats usually want nothing to do with the Left party. The best thing about GP was that he knew to fuck over the left to the benefit of everyone else in Sweden.
I liked GP. Voted for him once before my fav boy Fredrik Reinfeldt became the leader of the moderates.
I miss him the most for his interviews, his way of speaking was hilarious to me, like every word he uttered was a chore :lol.
I vote S fairly consistently and even I would rather have a strong M over a rising SD.
So we're in an alternate reality now where GP was a great PM?
Ok.
To be more on topic; this scandal is so stupid. If they would have dealt with it when it happened it would have been so much smaller and less disruptive. It's always the cover-up that gets you.
And it's even more stupid since the origin of this IT deal was a decision made by the Reinfeldt government in 2011 that government agencies should outsource their IT.
Ok.
To be more on topic; this scandal is so stupid. If they would have dealt with it when it happened it would have been so much smaller and less disruptive. It's always the cover-up that gets you.
And it's even more stupid since the origin of this IT deal was a decision made by the Reinfeldt government in 2011 that government agencies should outsource their IT.
hydrophilic attack
Member
I grew up in a relatively well-off family. But my dad always had a strong moral compass that rubbed off on me and my sister. My mom did as well, but had been indoctrinated with hate of the social democrats since her upbringing in a well-off family. The rest of our family finally managed to drag her left to the Green Party in the last election. I'm worried that the fumbles of the green party, and the vegan zealotry of my sister and her husband might pull her right though.
It was the previous right wing government that abolished the wealth tax and completely gutted the property tax. I would have been fine with taking away one of the two, but taking both went too far in helping rich people in my opinion. Almost all economists agree that gutting the property tax wad a huge mistake. It's not coming back though. Proposing to bring it back is what cost the social democrats the 2010 election. Income taxes are indeed high, but what it gives us in terms of governmental services helps the middle class out immensely. Universal health-care, free higher education, income security. My parents managed have a house and raise two kids on what's roughly equivalent to a $65000 per year household income and we never lacked for anything. Yet you can see in gaf threads (and just by traveling in the US and talking to people you meet) that in the US, where the middle class is freed from the yoke of taxes, most families would struggle to afford a mortgage, pay for health insurance, pay back student debts, save up money for their kids' education and their own retirement, on such an income. The more you travel the world, the better you'll understand how good we have it here.
What is y'all's issue with the left party? I'm looking everywhere for this supposed extremism, but can't find it anywhere. They're basically pushing for the same policies the social Democrats pushed before they moved a bit to the right in the nineties. Is it all about immigration?
There's a huge difference between outsourcing IT, which makes sense since after all government agencies are not and should not be IT companies, and what Transportstyrelsen did.
You can outsource IT and data handling in a way that ensures that only technicians with proper security clearance handle classified data and all sensitive data is kept within Swedish borders. That's massively different from putting top secret data in the hands of un-vetted Eastern European personnel and storing it on servers in the Czech Republic.
I have to say that firing Johansson and Ygeman was a pretty clever move from Löfven. Now, the no-confidence vote will not be about getting rid of some clearly incompetent ministers. Instead it will be about if this whole history is enough to no longer have confidence in Hultqvist - who up until this, all things considered, has proven to be fairly competent and respected and arguably has a smaller role in this mess. And it's not like the Alliance can back down from their demand now, which makes them look pretty remorseless/ out for blood.
That's some selective quoting. I said the origin of this debacle was the directive from 2011 not that this decision was made then.
Who said anything about a government agency being an IT company? There is a big difference between doing IT in-house and being an IT company.
And this doesn't really make sense:
Because this scandal is literally about the outsourcing of IT by Trafikstyrelsen. And how it was so poorly handled.
Like I genuinely don't get what you're arguing.
I'm arguing that unless the previous government approved this exact outsourcing contract, they have no role in this whole scandal. Outsourcing of IT is not the problem here - the problem is how insanely incompetently and carelessly this specific outsourcing was handled.
And I do believe that there are societal gains to be made from government agencies not doing IT in-house; it's simple logic that a company fully dedicated to IT will be better and more efficient at it. If nothing else, the incompetence of the IT staff at Transportstyrelsen showed exactly that (apparently most of them didn't even know what data they had in their systems!).
The government didn't approve the deal, the agency did. Government agencies are by and large autonomous.
The agency did the deal because of the directive from 2011. The head of the agency who initiated the deal was appointed by the Reinfeldt government, and the deal was initiated under the Reinfeldt government.
That's the layer of stupid I was talking about.
1) No it's not "simple logic" that a company dedicated to IT is better and more efficient by its nature.
2) SÄPO advised against any outsourcing precisely because of its sensitivity.
3) "competence of the IT staff at Transportstyrelsen showed exactly that (apparently most of them didn't even know what data they had in their systems!)" [citation needed]
Yes - and the directive promoted outsourcing as a concept, not putting sensitive info in un-vetted hands. Nothing stupid about that at all.
1) "Simple logic" or not, it's a generally accepted truth in business academia. "Profit from the core" etc.
2) Yes, of course there's sensitivity related to it. And it was handled very carelessly. And yes, they should have listened to Säpo in this case. Doesn't make outsourcing of non-primary functions of government agencies a bad thing.
3) Säpo interview with the head of IT ("IT-direktör") at Transportstyrelsen, the person who ordered the outsourcing:
The full report/transcript is available here:http://files.bakom-kulisserna.webnode.se/200001200-e5ac1e6a64/transportstyrelsen-2017-16343-2.pdf
Yes - and the directive promoted outsourcing as a concept, not putting sensitive info in un-vetted hands. Nothing stupid about that at all.
1) "Simple logic" or not, it's a generally accepted truth in business academia. "Profit from the core" etc.
2) Yes, of course there's sensitivity related to it. And it was handled very carelessly. And yes, they should have listened to Säpo in this case. Doesn't make outsourcing of non-primary functions of government agencies a bad thing.
3) Säpo interview with IT director at Transportstyrelsen:
The full report/transcript is available here:http://files.bakom-kulisserna.webnode.se/200001200-e5ac1e6a64/transportstyrelsen-2017-16343-2.pdf
That's not the layer of stupid, it is Alliansen complaining very loudly about the outsourcing which happened by their directive, by the guy they appointed, at the agency they created.
Like I said earlier the entire thing is stupid. The way the outsourcing was handled was stupid. The decision by the director general (Maria Ågren) to ignore proper procedure with, and warnings about the classified material was stupid. The lack of communication between departments, ministers, police, and government was stupid. The way a very real issue is being used as a political football is stupid.
1) I just find saying that complex things are inherently one way or the other by the justification of "simple logic" is overly reductive.
2) I meant this specific instance.
3) Yeah, that's not a great look. But a significant part of the issue seems to be the lack of communication by the leadership including the director generals (both Staffan Widlert and Maria Ågren).
Also, did you just link a conspiracy nut website? (I'm not contesting the veracity of the report, just that I don't like having those kinds of websites in my browsing history)
We can definitely agree that the whole thing is stupid!
Sorry about the conspiracy link, I'm definitely not a reader of any such sites! I read the report somewhere earlier this week but can't remember where and that was the first link Google gave me (that was not behind a paywall).
