THE DANISH GENERAL ELECTION (3)

The campaign for the general election on 15 September is in 24/7 mode, and is being dominated - unsurprisingly - by discussion of the economy.

Yesterday's announcement that Danish GDP grew slightly in the second quarter of 2011 brought sighs of relief from the Government block, and lots of talk about how this was a result of their careful stewardship of the nation's finances, blah, blah, blah. Forget about the fact that the recent jitters in the stockmarket and other things mean it is quite possible that the third quarter figures could be negative.

That euphoric bubble was duly punctured this morning, when it was announced that unemployment in July had risen for the third month in a row, by almost 1,000 to 163,000, with the increase hitting young people under 30 particularly hard. Cue lots of stuff from the Opposition block about how the Government's stewardship of the economy had been totally useless, blah, blah, blah. Forget about the fact that Denmark's unemployment rate of 6.1% is still markedly lower than in most other rich countries.

I said in a recent tweet that after less than a week out of three, I was already totally bored by the campaign. The fact of the matter is that a small country such as Denmark is economically dependent on decisions made elsewhere, notably the European Central Bank and the German Cabinet. Danish Governments can trim and adjust here and there. But they can't pull the country out of recession and back into a growth path, unless the German locomotive is pulling first.

With the main blocks simply parrotting slogans, I think the electorate is rapidly becoming bored as well. Opinion polls show a steady 94-81 or thereabouts lead for the Opposition in the 179-seat Folketing (there are 4 independents from Greenland and the Faroe Islands), a lead which probably has more to do with kicking the Government out after 10 years than anything else. However, what is changing are the fortunes of individual parties within the blocks. The two clear winners so far are both led by telegenic women, who manage to say something more substantial than tired old soundbites. They are the centrist Radikale Venstre, under Margrethe Vestager; and (the surprise of the campaign) the far-left Enhedslisten, whose spokesperson (they don't have a single leader) is the 27-year old Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen.

Walter Blotscher