His Master’s Voice?

The newspaper Aftonbladet’s revelation that the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv, SN) has paid the PR firm Prime to push the internal Social Democratic post-election debate in more “growth friendly” direction has dropped like a bomb in the Swedish labour movement over the weekend.

It is of course no surprise that a special interest is trying to influence political parties. The problem is that the influence in this case was conducted by social democratic employees at Prime that participated in the social democratic debate without openly declaring that they were on the SN payroll.

And the social democratic line up at Prime isn’t just anyone. The firm has recruited heavily among the cadre of political advisors that occupied the halls of power during the last Social Democratic  government.

Not least has Prime’s Head of Public Affairs Niklas Nordström – former chairman of the Social Democratic Youth, SSU – had a prominent role as a social democratic opinion-maker. He has regularly written op-ed columns in the newspaper Göteborgsposten (he also writes for Policy Network) and has often commented on social democracy in radio and on television.

The documents that Aftonbladet got hold of shows how Prime on assignment by SN planned to quickly make its mark on the social democratic post-election debate. Those that have followed the social democratic debate during the fall can also see that the plan has been implemented to the letter.

Prime did – through their polling branch United Minds – a voter survey to explain the Social Democratic election defeat. United Minds’ Carl Melin – previously in charge of polling at the Social Democratic Party headquarters – presented the survey a few days after the elections in a large op-ed article in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. In brief, the survey – which had dubious statistical data – claimed that it was resistance to the tax reduction for household services, cooperation with the Left Party and the attitude to nuclear power that were the reasons for the Social Democrats’ loss in the elections.

Trade unions, party districts and central social democratic players have also been offered free briefings of the voter survey in an attempt to set the agenda within the movement.

In addition, Prime initiated an election analysis, under the banner of the independent center left think tank Arenagruppen, in which Carl Melin took part. Prime also financed a book that Melin wrote on the subject which was published by Arenagruppen. Prime is a “gold sponsor” of  Arenagruppen and stand out among the other financial backers that mainly are trade unions or organizations and companies close to the labour movement.

Update: In a press release today Arenagruppen announced that they are breaking ties with Prime.

The revelation that outside organizations in secret has tried to influence the internal debate on the party’s future is unique in the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. If one should draw historical parallels, the closest you can get is the entryism that a Trotskyist organization attempted against SSU in the seventies. Though they were certainly not as centrally located as the actors in “Prime Gate”.

But the affair also shows how weak the intellectual infrastructure of the center left is in Sweden.  It is almost nonexistent when it comes to independent ideological and policy development. Someone said that a country always has an army, its own or someone else’s. The same can be said about parties and ideas.

In a later post I will return to the problematic discussion of social democracy and growth.

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