Why things are going so badly with the Labor Party and the government has been a sort of exam paper for journalists, election researchers and other particularly interested parties over the past year. On Friday, Ap leader Jonas Gahr Støre invites to a summarizing summer press conference in the prime minister’s residence. He will serve strawberries and talk about a government that delivers in tough times. The journalists will ask about everything that has gone wrong. New answers will come. Is there some sort of conclusion? There are two theories about voter flight in particular that stand out: One is about concern for our wallets. The other about trust and safe management. For a government, it is a very unfortunate combination. Precisely in turbulent times, politicians are completely dependent on the voters’ trust. The Labor Party’s official explanation has been that voters are punishing them for the bad economic times. Although the government is not to blame for high electricity prices, expensive petrol, price increases for food and other goods and a rise in interest rates that few were prepared for, the arrow points to those who rule the country. That is the core of what is often referred to as “Its the economy, stupid”, where voters are guided by concern for both the country’s economy and their own. Record exodus of voters But what they have an obvious responsibility for is how they actually solve the crises that arise. There are many indications that the voters are unimpressed by the government’s ability to govern the country. Because after receiving support to change the political course after the last election, the voters have disappeared faster than the holiday money for a trip abroad. The fact that the government went on the defensive in handling the electricity crisis and pandemic contributed to a bad first impression. At the same time, they have come out wrong with the business world as well as with their own metropolitan politicians. It has been reinforced by a number of small and large cases dealing with everything from Søgne, county reversal, salmon tax and the Fosen action, which more or less deservedly be read into the image of a government that is chronically backward, retrospective, unpredictable and struggling with communication. But it is difficult to interpret it differently when the voters flee in droves to the party that offers the least alternative policy. It is probably so much the trust in Erna Solberg’s way of being prime minister that has made the Conservative Party Norway’s supremely largest party in the polls. In the Labor Party, they have taken comfort in the fact that, strictly speaking, voters are not dissatisfied with the policies they are pursuing. That’s scant comfort right now. Because the combination of bad economic times and little trust in governance is a poison for Ap. It has always been in their political DNA that they are a governing party. A party that you can safely vote for because nothing can go wrong when Labor governs the country. Pirouette about money When it is at stake, it is particularly in an area where the government has made itself vulnerable to criticism with open eyes. It takes a goldfish’s memory not to have realized that in a few months the government has both taken a U-turn and completely changed its rhetoric in economic policy. When the national budget was presented this autumn, the finance minister described this as a completely new reality. “The situation we are in now cannot be solved with increased spending, but with less spending. Increased spending can actually create a crisis,” said Vedum in his financial speech. The message from everything that could crawl and move in the government parties was that we must tighten up “to avoid price increases and interest rate hikes”. And they didn’t stop there. Reducing the use of oil money is “the most important measure to contribute to increased security for people’s everyday finances”. With lower use of oil money, we help to control the high price increase. If we use more oil money, we make the challenges bigger and leave the problem to others – to the people, the finance minister said in black and white in October. Best-before date like an avocado But when the revised budget was presented this spring, there was little to say about tightening. In contrast, the use of oil money increased by NOK 56 billion. Before SW. The main message from the government was now to spare welfare. But anyone who follows a little can see that we have no control over price growth and that interest rates will very likely continue to rise. At least one rate hike from Norges Bank is expected this week. A large part of the spending was about compensating for increased prices. In autumn, the message from the finance minister was that “we cannot compensate for all cost growth. The public sector must also contribute”. But when the fact was presented in the revised budget, public enterprises were actually compensated for “the high price and wage growth”. After negotiations with SV, room was also found for increased child benefit and other measures through even more oil money. Peasant regrets in the Ministry of Finance? There are, of course, good reasons for the government turning around the five-year-old (and the billions), but steady management and control do not resemble that. Perhaps they regret that they linked the national budget so strongly to inflation and interest rates this autumn? In any case, it could have been an advantage to show a little more uncertainty and doubt, then as now. These are turbulent economic times and it is hardly easy to know what is right. Something they obviously regret is the controversial 750,000 kroner limit they set for “ordinary people”. What appeared to be a good idea has become the subject of both criticism and hatred. No longer ordinary people’s turn At Christmas, the slogan itself disappeared from the Labor Party’s active vocabulary. Now the limit of NOK 750,000 is being scrapped in order to get tax relief, and the extraordinary employer’s tax for salaries over NOK 750,000 is to be phased out. Perhaps it is perceived as a necessary cleaning job in election campaign rhetoric that did not stand the test of time. But with this vacillation, they make themselves vulnerable to criticism of the important economic management, which preoccupies many voters now. One would think the critics had an easy job. But even though the government has put the ball on its own goal line, the opposition is also unable to get the ball into the goal. There, too, there is trouble. At the same time, we see that both Ap and Sp are hitting back harder against the Conservative Party, which is accused of everything from sitting still in the boat, being irresponsible and troublemakers. The measurements that will come in after the holidays will show whether it is a fruitful strategy. No longer delicious in Denmark An x-factor that can further sour the mood among voters this summer is the weak krone. In many of our usual holiday countries, we pay record low for the money. Eventually, this will be reflected in the prices of the goods we buy in the shop, which have already risen a lot. Nobody quite knows why the Norwegian krone is so weak. The two most important explanations are linked to oil prices and interest rates. The Norwegian oil economy and the fact that the krona has been artificially high are also highlighted. Some financiers claim that the government’s unpredictability in tax and business policy is a cause, without this being documented. Jan Petter Sissener and Øystein Stray Spetalen, who are hardly among Støre’s fan club, blame the government. The Conservative Party’s former state secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Jon Gunnar Pedersen, has also pointed to increased political risk as a partial reason. The government calls this “pure opinion without professional grounding”, and several currency analysts reject this. E-24’s stock market commentator also believes that this use of statistics “stands up”. But the debate simmers. NHO’s chief economist Øystein Dørum writes that the weak krone is not only the government’s fault, but that increased unpredictability of framework conditions may have contributed. He believes that Støre is being pretentious, and refers to tax changes that are not “performed prudently”. For those in charge, it is also absolutely crucial that that impression is not allowed to stick. It will be fatal if a seed of doubt is sown that the government is part of the krone problem. Because this summer most Norwegians will experience that we have suddenly become markedly poorer. That a long lunch in Rome, a dinner in Paris or a night in a hotel in Denmark feels like being robbed in broad daylight. And mercy to those who were to be blamed for it.
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Sweaty summer for Støre – Ytring
