Members of the Labour Party (Ap) government, with Minister of Finance Jens Stoltenberg and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, during the ceremonial opening of the 170th Storting in Oslo on 11 October 2025. Photo: Thomas Andersen / NTB.

There runs a red thread through the government’s crisis management, and I believe people are beginning to discover it. For the Labour Party (Ap), no crisis is serious enough for them to ease taxes and duties. Ap’s redistribution policy stands in the way.

The policy is clear: As much monetary means as possible are to be collected into an already immensely wealthy state. The population is to be drained of accumulated means and purchasing power. It is self-evident that Ap understands this (anyone would). There is no longer a snowball’s chance in hell that Ap believes its own claim that “now people will have more to spend”. There is therefore every reason to believe that they are doing this deliberately.

I saw an apt meme on Facebook. It read: “In a country that is self-sufficient in hydropower and produces 231 billion litres of oil per year, an energy crisis with sky-high prices for electricity and fuel can be nothing other than a fabricated problem”.

An immensely rich state and an increasingly impoverished population—where have we seen that before? Totalitarian dictatorships are the first that come to mind. Recently we saw it happen in Venezuela. Those of us who are old enough also remember Ceaușescu’s Romania in 1989, where the people suffered terribly and the orphanages were filled with parentless children who behaved like animals, because they received neither care nor upbringing. But in the president’s palace the bathrooms were gilded in gold.

We are, of course, not there in Norway yet, but a government quarter costing 55 billion++ gives rise to associations. Moreover, it began somewhere for Venezuela and Romania as well. Give Ap a few more years at the helm, and we will be there.

Stoltenberg has commented on fuel prices. He says that “for every krone we spend, we get one krone less for something else”. This is along the same lines as when Ap’s Ellen Reitan commented on the question of VAT on food. A reduction was rejected because “it would give less revenue to the state”. There is evident unanimity within Ap that revenue to the state is paramount. A government with such an attitude regards your money as its own, and considers it an undesirable thing that people should be allowed to retain any of their own money.

What is peculiar is that they reveal themselves in such a self-evident manner. Does Ap believe that this is what the people want and vote for? It is, of course, possible that they appeal to those who desire a strong state that distributes crumbs to the people, that is to say socialism. It is also possible that they have become so arrogant and full of themselves that they quite simply do not care what the people think. In that case, we are here speaking of what in psychology is called a narcissistic “tell”, where the narcissist from time to time reveals his malevolent inner self, either as a slip or as a deliberate manipulation.

It does not, in any case, appear to occur to Stoltenberg that the same also applies in the opposite direction: For every krone the population must spend, they get one krone less for something else—food, clothes for the children, heating and housing costs. Either that, or he does not care.

He also stated that the world has never been more dangerous, and that Norwegians must prepare themselves for the war in the Middle East to affect their wallets. When I heard this, it struck me how far removed this man’s reality is from the existence of ordinary people. Norwegian households have been in a continuous economic crisis since 2021, but Stoltenberg speaks as though the period of high prices begins now. An adult also responded drily in the comments field that “some of us remember a far more dangerous world than now, Stoltenberg”.

People are, in general, furious about the latest statements from Stoltenberg. There is no longer much support for Ap to be discerned in the comments fields. Some write that they feel physically unwell from seeing images of Støre or Stoltenberg. That is serious.

Aftenposten closed its comments field after a few hundred mostly negative comments. That is probably not a good idea, for people use the comments field to vent their dissatisfaction and their anger. In this way they obtain an outlet. If they are denied this, the anger will find other channels. The media protect the government by publishing as few contentious matters as possible for open comment. As recently as today, I saw VG attribute fuel prices to “Donald Trump’s war in Iran”. Not a single word about Norwegian excise duties. Norwegian politicians are chronically whitewashed in Norwegian media.

But the government does not protect the people.

It is in truth a dreadful government that we have managed to vote into power. Something must happen, I simply do not know what.