The British newspapers write that SDP’s Kohut did not end after Sanna Marini’s term ended. According to The Times, Mikkel Näkkäläjärvi “tried to turn his troubled past into a virtue”.
LONDON The British newspapers have made headlines about the Nazi salute and cat-killing frenzy of the SDP’s new party leadership.
The conservative The Daily Telegraph published a party leader Antti Lindtman a Nazi salute picture of a group of friends as the main picture of foreign news in their online application.
“Nakunazis and cat killing torment Sanna Marini’s successor,” the Daily Telegraph headlined.
The center-right The Times finds a continuum Sanna Marini from the Prime Minister’s term.
It writes that after the publicity received by Marin’s rowdy nights, his successor as chairman of the SDP “now has to compete because of an old photo in which he is in the company of almost naked men, two of whom are doing the Nazi salute”.
– He poses with a toy gun. He is wearing nothing but a balaclava and an elf hat with a procession on his head, writes The Times.
The newspaper explains that the picture is from the school years twenty years ago and according to Lindtman was taken in the school’s film club.
The Times and Telegraph are among the most influential newspapers in Britain.
The Telegraph reminds us that basic Finns Vilhelm Junnila resigned as finance minister due to the use of Nazi terms and the number 88 referring to the Hitler salute. However, the magazine does not compare the cases of Lindtman and Junnila.
The papers quote Lindtman’s statements to the Finnish media that he does not support Nazism.
– I am not particularly proud of the pictures, the Times quotes Lindtman as saying in Ilta-Sanom.
“Tried to turn the troubled past into a virtue”
Also elected party secretary of SDP Mikkel Näkkäläjärvi the cat killing is reported in both newspapers. The Telegraph writes that this has been criticized for animal cruelty. The Times describes questions about the selection of the party secretary as embarrassing for the SDP.
– Mikkel Näkkäläjärvi, 33, was previously convicted of beating his neighbor’s cat to death with a shovel during summer vacation in 2006. He did not reveal his crime to the party until a newspaper revealed it during the 2019 EU election campaign, the Times describes.
According to the Times, in his speech at the SDP party meeting, Näkkäläjärvi “tried to turn his troubled past into a virtue”, saying that in Finland everyone should be able to fail and try again.
This is how Lindtman commented on Näkkäläjärvi’s past:
British newspapers diligently reported on Marin’s prime ministership. The Times called him a rock star prime minister. The magazines were particularly interested in dance videos and divorce, but statements about NATO, Ukraine and the corona were also reported.