Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre will continue swallowing camels in order to remain in office. The result will be irresponsible public spending, erratic policymaking, and high interest rates.
That is how Jan Petter Sissener opens an article in Nettavisen, where the well-known investor has become a columnist.
Sissener sees in Støre a politician who seeks power for power’s sake. According to the investor, Støre’s principal objective is to remain Prime Minister.
After almost five years as Prime Minister, the picture has long since become unmistakably clear. Støre is a man who is willing to pay a very high price to hold on to his position. He is of little concern about what he actually achieves, so long as he himself remains in office.
Strictly speaking, things were not very different when Erna Solberg occupied the same office. But Støre’s craving for power may also be his greatest weakness, Sissener argues.
In any negotiation, it is a severe disadvantage to be in a position where there is something one is determined to obtain at any price.
This can be exploited by the parties on the other side of the negotiating table. As a result, the smaller parties wield influence far beyond what the number of voters they represent would suggest. We have seen many examples of this, under both Solberg and Støre.
A clear example is the negotiations over the revised National Budget in the Storting this spring. Støre had to swallow one camel after another in order to secure a majority.
Here, Sissener mentions “the utterly hopeless Stad Ship Tunnel project”. In this case, it was the Centre Party that managed to pressure Labour during the negotiations on the revised National Budget, which had several concessions to offer the smaller parties.
The other support parties have pressured Støre & Co. into allocating more taxpayers’ money to county roads, barn construction, railways, and the Norwegian State Housing Bank (Husbanken). Has anyone ever seen any of these smaller parties pressure the government into introducing spending cuts? By all means remind us if you can recall such an occasion.
It is, after all, our money that Støre is spending, Sissener points out.
Therefore, the inevitable consequence of Støre’s desire to remain Prime Minister is that public expenditure will simply continue to grow.
Beyond the reckless spending, Støre’s weakness also creates great unpredictability and an economic uncertainty that is damaging in itself. Both businesses and private individuals become more cautious with their money.
Economic activity declines, confidence falls, the krone weakens, and interest rates rise.
Opportunity for the opposition
With only 53 Members of the Storting, Labour depends on support from all four of its supporting parties (Rødt, the Socialist Left Party (SV), the Green Party (MDG), and the Centre Party) to secure a majority, which requires 85 representatives. This provides the opposition with significant opportunities.
But, as usual, it is difficult to define who actually constitutes the opposition, since the divisions between the various relevant parties are considerable on several important issues.
The support parties’ greatest weakness is their internal disagreements and their lack of willingness to bring down the government.
But that weakness is completely overshadowed by Støre’s greatest weakness: his determination to remain Prime Minister.
Sissener nevertheless believes that Støre’s camel-swallowing is worth its weight in gold for the opposition, which is well placed to win the 2029 election. In the meantime, we can expect quarrelling over who will be the so-called centre-right parties’ candidate for Prime Minister.
Neither Conservative Party leader Ine Eriksen Søreide nor Liberal Party leader Gury Melby appears willing to accept that the Progress Party’s Sylvi Listhaug should take on that role, despite the Progress Party being by far the largest party.
In any event, Støre still has time to do a great deal of damage during the three years we must endure until the next parliamentary election, Sissener believes.
Public spending will spiral even further out of control. Much of it will amount to pure waste. It will become even more difficult to create new businesses in this country.
Wealthy investors who have the means and opportunity will flee the country, while battery factories will continue to spring up, placing further strain on an already heavily burdened energy sector. One can probably do little more than dream of lower interest rates, greater purchasing power, and safer city streets.
Immigration will continue, foreign aid will not be abandoned, and climate hysteria will persist. Hundreds of billions will be thrown at meaningless climate measures with no demonstrable effect.
Trust will decline in step with tax increases, lost jobs, and self-inflicted inflation. One must still search long and hard to find genuinely critical commentary from the power-loyal regime media.
Very little gold for the country, then. But more camel-swallowing for Støre, who remains Prime Minister.