DONG ENERGY (2)

The proposed minority investment by Goldman Sachs in state-owned Dong Energy caused the partial collapse of the Danish Government yesterday. Despite last-minute harrumphing by trade unions and an online petition against the deal, which attracted almost 200,000 signatures within days, the deal itself was never in doubt. The Danish People's Party, probably the only people to emerge from the mess with credit, were right to question the details of the investment, which were far too generous to Goldman Sachs. It also emerged that Goldman Sachs were intending to channel their investment through a company in the Cayman Islands (corporate tax avoidance is a big issue here at the moment). But the DPP could be, and were duly, ignored, since the Social Democrat/Socialist/Radical coalition Government had already secured in advance the votes of the opposition Venstre and Conservatives. With a secure Parliamentary majority, the deal was duly approved yesterday.

The problems were not with the opposition, but within the ruling coalition itself, and the Socialists in particular. This is the first time that they have ever been in Government, and the strains of moving from being a perennial protest party to a responsible part of the country's leadership were always going to be great. Those strains had increased markedly in the wake of the financial crisis as the coalition found itself in the position of being a left of centre Government forced to implement painful reforms more normally associated with right of centre parties. The Socialists have found themselves usurped as the protest party of the left by the even more left-wing Enhedslisten, and were duly thumped in last November's local government elections. Many Socialist members (if not their Ministerial representatives) have long questioned the wisdom of being in a coalition Government so far removed from what they perceive as the party's core principles.

Against that background, the Dong affair was not so much a fundamental issue, but the straw that broke the camel's back. And the catalyst came, when Enhedslisten tabled a preparatory motion in Parliament calling for a "time-out" on the vote on the Dong deal, while an all-Danish solution was found, that excluded Goldman Sachs. Many Socialist MP's, supported by party members and the obvious public support in the petition, thought that a time-out made eminent sense. However, for Socialist Ministers, the issue became the Danish equivalent of a three-line whip; if you are in Government, you vote for Government policy. Under a strong leader, rebellious MP's might well have been cowed. But Annette Vilhelmsen, elected party leader as an outsider in October 2012, has turned out to be a disastrous choice. Yesterday, after a series of crisis meetings and on the morning of the Dong vote, she pulled the Socialists out of the Government and announced her resignation as party leader. Within 24 hours, the remainder of the party's leadership had resigned, and two former Socialist Ministers, Health Minister Astrid Krag and Environment Minister Ida Auken, had defected to the Social Democrats and Radicals respectively. Leaderless, rudderless, and out of Government, there is now a real prospect that the party will simply implode and disappear.

In terms of Government, some have said that not much has changed; the number of MP's who support Helle Thorning-Schmidt as Prime Minister today is the same as the number who supported it yesterday. Indeed, it could be said that the Government has been strengthened; many of its problems stemmed from bickering, both internally and with its nominal supporters in Enhedslisten, and the first of those is now greatly reduced. However, it is never a good thing for a Government to lose Ministers, and after the turbulence of last autumn, the Prime Minister was at pains to stress that she didn't intend to change any more Ministers before the next election. Suddenly, she now has to find six new ones.

In a more general sense, the affair highlights one of the disadvantages of coalition politics. In a 2-party system such as the U.K.'s or America's, critics from the fringes can be accomodated within "broad church" parties by politely ignoring them and never giving them office. But in a multi-party system, those fringe critics can find a home in a party of their own (Enhedslisten, the DPP, the Socialists). If at some point, a coalition arises that places that party in power, then the whole party has to change it ways. In the case of the Socialists, that change was simply not possible; and I suspect it would be the same with Enhedslisten. The interesting question is whether the DPP can make the change, when (as I expect) the right come back to power at the next election. My prediction is that they can, not least because Pia Kjærsgaard and Kristian Thulesen Dahl are much better politicians than Annette Vilhelmsen and Villy Søvndal ever were.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs must be chuckling. Not only have they obtained a favourable investment, which they expect to make a lot of money for them, but they have demonstrated that they have the power to shake Governments. The fact that they seem to be widely hated in Denmark is probably not something that worries them. I once had a job interview with them, where I was asked whether I would rather make a lot of money or have friends. I mumbled something hopeless about how I didn't think you would have to choose. That was obviously the completely wrong answer, since the interview ended shortly thereafter.

Walter Blotscher

THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN (2)

I started this blog four years ago with a post on the Australian Open, so it's appropriate that I go back to it.

First, I have to admit that I was wrong about Andy Murray. After losing to Federer in that final, I predicted that he would never win a Grand Slam; but he has since won two, a U.S. Open and Wimbledon last year. I still can't warm to him, in the way I can to Federer or Djokovic, but the boy's done good, as they say.

Federer had a good tournament, despite being almost an old man at 32. Last year was, by his high standards, a bit of a disaster, as he was plagued by a series of niggling back problems. However, he is now back injury-free, with a new racket and a new coach in Stefan Edberg, another supremely elegant player and my hero from the 1980's/early 1990's. The combination was clearly on display, as he demolished both Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, his nemesis of the past couple years, in the last 16, and Murray in the quarter finals. But he then ran into Rafael Nadal, probably the player that has always given Federer the most problems, his heavily topspun forehand putting pressure on Federer's backhand. Nadal played at his best, and Federer didn't, so the result was pretty predictable.

With Federer, Murray and (in the other half of the draw) Djokovic out of the way, Nadal was the overwhelming favourite to win. But that didn't take account of Stanislaw Wawrinka, the Swiss conqueror of Djokovic in the quarter finals. At 28, Wrawinka is a late developer, who has improved markedly in the past year or two, and who possesses both a powerful serve and the best one-handed backhand in the game. In the first set, he played beautifully, literally blowing Nadal off the court (not an easy thing to do). Nadal then tweaked his back; and although that made Wrawinka nervous, he eventually came through to win in four sets. Remarkably, this was only the second time since January 2005 that a men's Grand Slam winner had not been one of the big four of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray.

In the women's competition, all of the top seeds stumbled against lesser opposition. This allowed my favourite Li Na to win her second Grand Slam title after her French Open victory a couple of years ago. In an age when top women's tennis players are very young, it was refreshing to see a 31-year old take the trophy.  

Walter Blotscher

HERESY

Heresy is a word I automatically associate with ancient times; a unified Christian church, the Spanish Inquisition, burnings at the stake, that sort of thing. It's not a word you'd expect to hear in a 21st century episcopal election.

Yet that is one of the accusations being thrown in the election in Ribe diocese, which covers Southern Jutland and is the oldest in Denmark. In contrast to (say) the Catholic and Anglican churches, bishops in Denmark's egalitarian Lutheran church are elected by the members of the local parish councils, and there are three candidates to replace Elisabeth Dons Christensen (another contrast) when she retires on 1 June this year. One of the three has accused one of the others of heresy, on the grounds that he once wrote in a book that he doesn't believe in God as an almighty creator.

Episcopal elections tend to be quiet affairs here. However, Jutland is probably the part of the country where religious differences are most pronounced and theological disputes conducted most passionately. The Ribe election could end up as being quite interesting.

Walter Blotscher

HOME COURT ADVANTAGE (2)

A year ago, Denmark got blown away by Spain in the final of the World handball Championships, suffering a humiliating defeat after looking good throughout the qualifying rounds. This year's European Championships, in reality the toughest championships of all, have just been played here over the past two weeks. Denmark were the defending champions, having won in Serbia two years ago; and with most of the 15,000 supporters in the Boxen in Herning firmly behind the home side, the odds on a repeat Danish victory were good.

For a long time, that optimism was justified. Denmark were the only country to go through the qualifying rounds undefeated; and in the semi-final, they got their revenge by beating Spain. That left only France, one of the giants of the sport, but also with an ageing team that had looked vulnerable at various points.

Unfortunately, in front of the Queen and the Prime Minister and a sea of fans dressed in red, the wheels fell off. France went 13-4 up in the first 15 minutes or so, and never looked back, eventually winning 41-32. My theory about home court advantage went up in smoke, along with all of those Danish hopes.

Walter Blotscher

DENMARK'S TITANIC

Most people know the story of the Titanic. A modern ship, built to be unsinkable, sinks on its maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg, with huge loss of life.

Denmark has its own Titanic, the Hans Hedtoft. The ship was built by the Government in 1958 to supply Greenland. In an age of limited air transport, the ship was designed to be able to supply the then Danish colony all-year round instead of via the normal summer only schedule. It was an icebreaker, with a double hull, divided (shades of the Titanic) into seven watertight compartments, so that if one got punctured, the ship could still float. At the time, it was considered unsinkable. Yet on 30 January 1959, on its maiden voyage to Greenland, the Hans Hedtoft hit an iceberg and sank. All 95 on board lost their lives; despite a week-long search, no trace of either them or the ship was ever found, with the exception of a single lifebuoy that was washed up in Iceland some nine months later. It was one of Denmark's worst ever shipping disasters.

After the accident, it emerged that a number of captains with experience of sailing to Greenland had warned the Government not to go ahead with the plan, since the seas were too rough in winter, and there was extremely limited visibility because of the darkness. Political pressure forced a number of captains to withdraw their letter, so that the eventual presentation to Parliament by the relevant Minister downplayed the risks. Thereafter, the ship was doomed; as one captain put it, it was sign of man's hubris to think that such a wild force of nature could be tamed.

Walter Blotscher

HOMOSEXUALITY IN AFRICA

One of the unabashedly positive trends that has taken place in my lifetime is a public acceptance of homosexuality. Male homosexuality, or to be legalistically pedantic, male homosexual acts, were decriminalised in the U.K. in the 1960's when I was a child (interestingly, female homosexual acts were never criminal; the probably apocryphal story is that they were not included in Victorian legislation, since Queen Victoria refused to believe that they existed). And since then, there has been a steady withering away of hindrances and petty discrimination, culminating in the passing of legislation allowing gay marriage in many countries.

However, one continent in the world lags behind that development; Africa. Amnesty International reckons that of the 57 African countries, some 38 criminalise and punish homosexuals. Some, such as Lesotho and Swaziland, have inherited the English common law tradition criminalising male acts, and have simply not modernised it; but others such as Tanzania and Uganda have sharpened the penalties markedly in recent years. Generally, it is the Anglophone and Arab countries that have the worst penalties; in black Francophone countries such as Chad and Niger, homosexuality is not illegal. However, only South Africa, with its carefully worded post-apartheid constitution, gives formal legal protection to gays.

What is worrying is not so much the legacy from colonial times, but the recent trend in the opposite direction. Uganda's Parliament originally passed a law proscribing the death penalty for homosexuality; but after protests, this was reduced to life imprisonment, plus up to three years in prison for people who do not report people they know to be homosexual. The law has not been signed by President Museveni, not least because a number of countries (including Denmark) have threatened to stop all aid if it is passed. But he is under local pressure to do so.

One factor in recent years has been the widespread influence of evangelical Protestant groups, particularly from America, who preach that homosexuality is a mortal sin, and who have gained traction in a number of African countries (including Uganda). Uganda's law was apparently drafted by one such preacher, and they are seen to be behind adverse developments in Nigeria. Having just re-read Reformation, I am extremely sceptical of the mixing of religion and private morals; perhaps more Africans should read it.

Walter Blotscher

INTERNET SECURITY

There is a lot of talk in the press about internet security at the moment; scams, identity theft and so on. Given the evidence about passwords, I have to say I am not surprised. In 2013 the 10 most common Danish passwords were (in order):

123456
password
12345678
qwerty
abc123
123456789
admin
111111
iloveyou
123123

I am a bit of a neanderthal when it comes to computers, but even I could have hacked into one of these.

Walter Blotscher