For today’s party leader debate, the Tidö parties had talked together. The ambition was to finally leave SD’s troll factory behind. The debate was supposed to be about the EU.
But the Tidö party leaders barely made it out of the starting gates before the plan fell apart. Clearly, the opposition was not going to cooperate on this. Andersson, Dadgostar, Demirok and Lind asked question after question about SD’s activities. And the cape was directed above all at M, KD and L. What would they do?
“Should Sweden become the first western country to accept troll factories?” asked the Left Party’s Nooshi Dadgostar.
Ukraine play did not help
It didn’t even help that the Tidö parties had prepared a diversionary move: SEK 75 billion to Ukraine. Appropriately enough, it was presented when Jimmie Åkesson himself took the podium. Still, the journalists mostly asked about the troll factories. An increasingly frustrated Prime Minister had to angrily repeat:
“I take no responsibility for what the Sweden Democrats do!”
From the rostrum of the Riksdag, Jimmie Åkesson attacked Kalla fakta as a “domestic influence operation”. However, he did not think it was so good that his employees faked Magdalena Andersson’s voice. You shouldn’t do that. But otherwise everything was good in the communication department. Although Åkesson did not know how many anonymous accounts they had. Or what material they spread.
“You can ask them about that,” was Åkesson’s answer.
Metamaneuver
In a last attempt to get rid of the troll factories and get some kind of EU debate going, Ebba Busch finally chose, in some kind of metamaneuver, to take a cue from the Liberals’ Johan Pehrson. It was a strong mark, Busch told us journalists who didn’t quite understand it. She then left the Riksdag.
The party leader debate was an orgy in a bad mood. And when the prime minister was finally about to leave, he was met at the door by SVT’s reporter Knut Kainz Rognerud, with the microphone in full swing. The mood did not seem to be improved by another opportunity to tell that the Moderates do not take responsibility for the Sweden Democrats. Kristersson made a U-turn and went out the back way. Johan Pehrson accompanied him.