Then it was time for the second act News morning’s innovative party leader conversation. The program wants to get away from fuss and sniping, and instead the politicians should be given an opportunity to speak to the point. Last week the Riksdag’s four smallest parties met – on Saturday’s TV4 Nyhetsmorgon it was time for Magdalena Andersson (S), Ulf Kristersson (M), Jimmie Åkesson (SD) and Nooshi Dadgostar (V) to talk.
Got questions about El-Haj
The new dramatic developments surrounding the social democratic member of parliament Jamal El-Haj on Friday had to be dealt with before the talks themselves. Anything else would be incomprehensible.
It was Expressen’s Sofie Löwenmark which revealed that in 2017 Jamal El-Haj (S) contacted the Swedish Migration Agency and tried to influence an asylum case concerning a conservative imam linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. That was the final straw and on Friday afternoon the Social Democrats’ district in Skåne announced that Jamal El-Haj has now been asked by the party to leave his parliamentary seat.
Despite the fact that Jamal El-Haj participated in a conference where there were clear Hamas connections, Magdalena Andersson chose to staunchly defend him. She claimed that El-Haj “dedicated his political life to fighting against Hamas” and that Prime Minister Kristersson accused El-Haj of being a terror romantic. But in Nyhetsmorgon, Andersson told that she suddenly lacked confidence in Jamal El-Haj.
– We are all human, humans can make mistakes. People sometimes make bad decisions. That’s how we are. But it is clear that if it happens repeatedly, then you reach a point when trust is broken, said Magdalena Andersson
Andersson does not make it easy for the voters to follow her moral compass when what is justifiable one day, the next day constitutes an example of grounds for exclusion.
12 year old SD proposal
So how did the talks go?
The two themes that applied for the day were “A secure Sweden” and “Keep the country together”. All party leaders offered both laughter and a pleasant atmosphere. Of course, there was the occasional thief pinch, but overall a pleasant event.
The least surprising was that Andersson and Dadgostar tried to make most of it about shortcomings in welfare, and that Kristersson and Åkesson talked about too much immigration.
Åkesson took the opportunity – also not entirely surprisingly – to once again dust off the proposal that the police should be allowed to detain gang members without concrete criminal suspicion. A proposal that makes anonymous witnesses and safety zones look like milk.
The least well thought out was probably when Magdalena Andersson would present her three most important points to make Sweden safer. One of the points was about introducing the same model as i.a. New York made under the concept of RICO laws. It’s just that the proposal was launched by The Sweden Democrats already in 2012. It would have been more lively and possibly attracted more voters if it had been the Social Democrats’ own proposal.
Magdalena Andersson and the others will probably get a new chance to talk when Nyhetsmorgon changes the concept. Both programs have been worth watching, and not least important.
See last week’s party leader conversation between MP, C, L and KD at TV4 Play