SWEDE VICTORY
The victory of the Swedish Moderates and their allies in the general election has led to much discussion in the British press about the implications for Blair, Borwn and Cameron.
I went to Sweden earlier this year with the Labour MP Martin Linton, who heads up the all-party Swedish Group - Martin is half-Swedish. We wanted to look at schools and hospitals because, of course, Swedish reforms are well known in this area.
That’s the first point. In many respects (ie the bits that work), Sweden is not some socialist nirvarna. In fact, one of the best free market think tanks, Timbro, is based in Sweden. Radical reforms, pioneered by Swedish conservatives more than a decade ago, and then accepted by the left, have brought choice, competition and rising standards. For example, one of the main hospitals in Stockholm is run by Capio, a private healthcare company. To all intents and purposes, it is a public hospital, but it is free to innovate, and its reforms are copied elsewhere. In addition, the Swedes charge for visits to GPs - not to raise money, but to regualte demand. In education, there is competition between public schools and charter schools. Again, they provide the same service, but the point is there is choice and there is innovation, and there is no great ideological row about who should run schools.
The second point, of course, is that Frederik Reinsfeldt, the new Swedish Premier, won by fighting his campaign from the centre. To be sure, he has promised some far-reaching changes, mainly attacking Sweden’s chronic unemployment by reducing labour regulation, and privatisation of many state industries. But he accepted the parameters of the Swedish model, by promising to maintain public health and education services. The siren calls for David Cameron to move away from the centre ground, by creating clear blue water simply for the sake of having a row, should be resisted.