Norway swings left

[alanjjohnstone]

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210913-norway-s-leftwing-opposition-wins-general-election-in-a-landslide

The new PM will be Jonas Gahr Stoere, the son of a ship-broker and heir to a fortune worth some $16 million, pledging policies to reduce inequality by giving tax relief to low and middle-income families, cut the cost of public services and hike taxes for the rich – including himself. He kept middle-class voters on side by making clear that only the top 20% of earners and the very wealthy would see their taxes rise if Labour won.

Stoere says the class differences he observed while studying in Paris in the 1980s converted him to social democracy.

“I learnt what kind of society I wanted to live in. In France, differences between people are large, larger than in Norway – between rich and poor, between those with education and those without, between city and countryside,” he wrote in a column for Norway’s ABC News website in 2017.

Stoere told Reuters last month that distributing the economic burden more evenly would ease the introduction of stricter climate policies – a major issue in Norway, which grew rich on oil, still the country’s biggest industry.

“We need to avoid yellow vests. We must ensure we cut emissions and create jobs,” Stoere said, referring to the French ‘yellow vest’ anti-government movement.

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