Chapter 7: Parties & PeopleLocal Party; Swedish NBSP; Young Ones Party; Gentleman’s Party; Green Party as representative of a ‘collectivist’ coalition united under a banner based on fear and mysticism; Swede’s response to the threshold problem; 1988 alliance between Greens and Stockholm Party; Kjell-Olof Feldt’s attack against Greens as a ‘bunch of individuals’.
An enterprising independent candidate could of course have a chat with other enterprising independent candidates and they could establish The Local Party or The Independent Candidate Party. Perhaps even the Nalle Björn för Statsminister Partiet (NBSP).There is also ample scope for The Young Ones Party for rebels with a political cause. Or even more exotic, The Gentlemen Party dedicated to challenging the conspiracy between The Megamachine, The Lawyers and The Ladies to demasculate Human Life. But so far in Sweden nobody has thought of the ideas of local parties, teddy bear picnic parties, young ones rock parties or gentlemen’s sword and ale parties.
More’s the pity, because the demonstration by the Green Party of the vulnerability of The Politician’s Club to gatecrashers could just as easily and probably more usefully have been organized by a collection of ‘individualist’ interests than the Green Party’s de facto appeal to ‘collectivist’ interests beneath a banner of fear and mysticism. And after all, was it not Goethe who said that in boldness is genius?
Not that the Swedes are unaware of The Threshold Problem. Indeed they have begun to grapple with it. There was the alliance between The Green Party and The Stockholm Party in 1988 for instance, with Stockholm Party candidates as Green Party candidates in effect for elections to Stockholm’s City Regional Parliament and City Parliament, although this is another story.
And the threat of threshold breaking is real enough so that the shrewd Labour Party Financial Boss, Kjell-Olof Feldt, chose as his line of attack on the Green Party the accusation that they were not a party at all but just a bunch of individuals; clearly making the political judgement that such a remark, cast as ridicule and picked up by the tabloids, would favour the election cause of The Grey Parties in general and The Swedish Labour Party in particular.
Perhaps, but for us it has the advantage of bringing us back to the subject of representative democracy!