After a difficult decade, the Swedish social democrats have set clear priorities and are riding high in the polls, finds Nick Pearce
For many years in Britain admiration for the ‘Swedish model’ was a preserve of the left. That started to change in 2006, when the centre-right Moderate party took power in Sweden under the dynamic leadership of Fredrik Reinfeldt. After becoming leader in 2003, Reinfeldt tacked to the centre and broke the historic stranglehold of the social democrats on political power, securing re-election in 2010. He was an obvious model for David Cameron to follow.
The social democrats were disorientated and demoralised by their defeat in the 2010 election and suffered further poll slumps until earlier this year when Stefan Löfven was elected the new party leader. An intelligent, respected former union leader with a compelling back-story (he spent the first months of his life in an orphanage before being adopted by a lumberjack and health visitor), Löfven has turned the party’s fortunes around. He has placed tackling youth unemployment and returning to full employment at the top of his priorities, but he has also ensured that extra stimulus spending is fully costed and pledged that tax increases will not fall on ordinary families. Fiscal responsibility is now at the core of the political identity of the social democrats.
As a result, the alternative coalition of social democrats, the left and the Green party are now backed by 48.6 per cent of voters, compared with the government’s 42.2 per cent, according to a recent poll. Löfven currently has a good chance of becoming Sweden’s prime minister in 2014.
If he does, he will have his work cut out, however. Sweden’s stellar economic performance has come to an abrupt halt as the effects of the eurozone crisis have spread north. Half of Sweden’s exports go to the European Union, and its leading companies have been badly hit by the crisis in its key markets. A wave of plant closures and job losses among household names like Volvo has shocked the country, piling pressure on the centre-right coalition government.
So the social democrats are thinking hard about how to secure the future of their high-skill, hi-tech economic model. Sweden invests 3.5 per cent of its GDP in R&D, putting it at the top end of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. The social democrats are determined to raise innovation still further, driving significant change to the economy through the transition to low-carbon energy use. Their trade unions are partners in this enterprise, looking to the sectors of the future to protect their members’ livelihoods. The Nordic Bank, a public investment bank of the kind Labour is proposing in the UK, is also a key player, investing in energy, low-carbon innovation and infrastructure.
The foundations for Sweden’s success are laid early, by its world-class early education and childcare provision. This is universal, high quality and available for children from the age of one onwards. It is free for low-income families but costs are capped at around £120 a month, so all social classes benefit from it. High standards mean that children start school ready to learn, while low costs underpin high employment for parents. Sweden’s childcare is so good it has been extended, not cut, by the Moderates. From 2013, resources will even be found for extending opening times at childcare facilities to evenings and weekends. Like the NHS in Britain, universal childcare is an institutional achievement of Nordic social democracy that has stood the test of time.
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Nick Pearce is director of IPPR
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