Labour Youth (AUF) leader Skjervø called the Progress Party (FrP) «notoriously opposed to trade unions». FrP leader Listhaug responded with «notorious liar», before Labour (Ap) leader Støre warned of a poorer democracy. At the bottom is the TV 2 clip in which Støre first answered «no» about talks with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and later asked for a new recording.
Gaute Børstad Skjervø described the Progress Party (FrP) as «notoriously opposed to trade unions». Sylvi Listhaug threw the loaded word back. Jonas Gahr Støre let the AUF leader’s inaccurate description stand and turned Listhaug’s reaction into a warning of a poorer democracy. The brief exchange shows how the Labour Party (Ap) awards itself moral supremacy, shields its own claims and receives help from a media public that knows the party’s reflexes better than the Progress Party’s policies.
Gaute Børstad Skjervø stands in state broadcaster NRK’s studio and tells viewers what the Progress Party allegedly thinks about trade unions. The Progress Party is «chronically» opposed to them. Sylvi Listhaug does not acknowledge organised working life. She distances herself from the trade unions. A little later the AUF leader sharpens the formulation and says that the Progress Party is «notoriously opposed to trade unions».
The claims are delivered with high moral temperature and without documentation. Skjervø shows no programme formulation, no national conference decision and no statement in which the Progress Party rejects trade unions or organised working life. The audience receives a ready-made verdict on the party, packaged as common knowledge.
The Progress Party’s programme on working life supports freedom of association, concluded agreements and a strong tripartite cooperation between employees, employers and the authorities. The party leaves the decision on membership to the individual. The Progress Party has wanted to reduce the trade union tax deduction, and the disagreement concerns the design of a tax deduction. Skjervø inflates this into an accusation of enmity towards the entire Norwegian working life model.
«Notorious» goes straight back
Then comes the second that triggers the entire performance about debate climate and democracy. Skjervø has just used «notorious» about the Progress Party. Listhaug hears the loaded word and the categorical untruths about her own policies. She replies in the same linguistic register:
«You lie all the time. You lie and lie. You are a notorious liar.»
The reply is spontaneous, hard and entirely understandable in the situation. «Notorious» comes from Skjervø’s own sentence and is returned in the next salvo. Listhaug writes no biography of the AUF leader. She reacts to a series of inaccurate accusations that are broadcast in prime time.
Skjervø’s presentation requires an explanation that can withstand contact with the party’s adopted policies. He provides no such explanation. The NRK programme moves on before this fundamental control question gains traction: Which specific point shows that the Progress Party rejects trade unions, organised employees or tripartite cooperation?
Støre arrives with democracy under his arm
Jonas Gahr Støre seizes the floor and assumes the role of the country’s moral supreme judge. He examines none of Skjervø’s claims. He reads no sentence from the Progress Party’s programme. He spends the time on Listhaug’s choice of words:
«We are on prime time, and you call the AUF leader a notorious liar. And you want to become Prime Minister of Norway. It will be a different Norway, a different debate climate, and it will be worse for Norwegian democracy.»
The Prime Minister’s moral alarm has a highly selective sensor. He directs it exclusively at Listhaug’s direct reply and uses democracy as a prop in the defence of his own youth party leader. The inaccurate descriptions of the Progress Party are left untouched.
Several techniques of domination are performed here in rapid succession. Skjervø assumes the right to define the Progress Party’s position. Listhaug’s correction is reclassified as a question about her character. Støre gives the AUF leader victim status and places himself in the role of responsible protector. The actual disagreement disappears under a layer of moral theatre.
This is a dirty method, because it rewards the first falsification. A politician can attribute attitudes to an opponent that the party expressly rejects. A direct correction immediately triggers a new accusation about tone and character. The Labour Party thus gets a free attack and moral protection around the attacker.
Moral rank without moral merit
The Labour Party has for decades cultivated the notion of the party as the adult, responsible and state-bearing force in Norwegian politics. This status is deployed before the evidence is available. An Ap politician is allowed to speak from the position of one who protects the community. A Progress Party politician is placed in a position where his or her decency must be proved.
Støre’s intervention builds on this old ranking. He acts as if his concern for democracy has greater value than scrutiny of the AUF leader’s claims. The moral authority comes from the office, the party’s self-narrative and the media’s well-known language about «responsible parties». Whether he deserves the trust is never put to the test.
The technique of domination is effective because it turns political power into moral credibility. The Labour Party has long been in government, built institutions and staffed large parts of public Norway. This historical power is treated as documentation of goodness. Criticism of the party’s methods can then be described as anger, polarisation, contempt or a danger to democracy.
Democracy is reduced to the Labour Party’s personal shield. Støre holds it up as soon as Listhaug uses a word that cuts through the party’s moral staging. In this way Ap appropriates the right to both attack, interpretation and judgement.
Støre’s old recording makes the performance cruder
Støre’s performance acquires its own flavour when one remembers the well-known TV 2 recording from 2011. He was asked whether he had spoken with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. Støre answered «no». The reporter referred to an interview in which Meshaal spoke of several telephone conversations with the Norwegian Foreign Minister.
Støre then asked for the recording to be made again, because he felt the introduction to the question had been unclear. In the new recording he acknowledged that he had had a couple of telephone conversations with Meshaal in 2007. The explanation was that he had first understood the question as referring to a physical meeting.
The recording gives the public a rare insight into political damage control while the camera is rolling. The question comes. The denial comes. The reporter presents contradictory information. Støre wants a new introduction and then delivers an explanation that accommodates the telephone conversations.
For many years Støre has been depicted with Pinocchio’s long nose in political caricatures. The image has stuck because his statements in a number of cases have been perceived as inaccurate, evasive or adapted to the moment. When this politician turns the word «lie» into a danger signal for democracy, the moral lecture becomes unusually impudent.
From fact-checking to tone-checking
The tone police work with attention as raw material. Control of programmes, decisions, quotations and context is pushed out of the picture. Feelings, facial expressions and reactions fill the broadcast surface and give television conflict without demanding documentation.
Støre moves the centre of the broadcast from the Progress Party’s working life policy to Listhaug’s personal suitability as Prime Minister. Skjervø’s accusations remain in the background and continue to work on the viewer. The public remembers the commotion and the moral reprimand. The programme text rarely occupies the same place in memory.
The method gives Ap an unreasonable advantage. The party’s representatives can use morally charged caricatures of the right and have them broadcast as political analysis. The Progress Party’s protest is assessed according to a stricter linguistic standard. The result is an asymmetrical debate in which Ap both throws the punch and controls the rule book.
The media contribute when they treat this division of roles as natural. The headline becomes Listhaug’s «notorious liar». The fact that triggered the words is reduced to a short background sentence. Støre’s admonitions acquire the status of responsible statesmanship.
The Progress Party’s growth and the production of moral suspicion
This type of framing becomes more significant as the Progress Party grows. The party received 23.8 per cent in the Storting election in 2025, its best result in the party’s history. In the summer of 2026 the average of the Storting polls is around 30 per cent. A Norstat poll in June gave the Progress Party 31.4 per cent.
The Progress Party is competing for the position of the country’s largest party. Around three out of ten voters support the party. Old methods of ridicule have lost much of their effect. The production of moral suspicion therefore becomes more important.
The media public is filled with stories about right-wing radicalism, right-wing extremism, dangerous online environments, 22 July, radicalised young men and research on right-wing attitudes. The themes are serious and journalistically legitimate. The connection to the Progress Party arises through percentages, expert comments, historical memberships and broad political categories.
The overall effect is a brownish edge around a legal, parliamentary party. Frequent placement of the party, its voters and its issues near the concept of right-wing extremism creates the connection. The association continues to work on the reader long after the article is closed.
Extremism research as political raw material
Labour-leaning tabloid VG (Norway’s largest newspaper) recently published a major story with the headline «150,000 Norwegians support right-wing extremist ideas». The figure came from a survey with 2,020 participants. They assessed four statements: that only people with white skin should live in Norway, that violence can be used to defend Norwegian culture, that violence between ethnic or religious groups is largely unavoidable, and that Norway is becoming a lawless society.
The answers were collected into one index. The researchers set thresholds for «support» and «strong support». A general statement about lawless social development was thus included in the same measuring instrument as racial purity and political violence.
Question selection, aggregation, weighting and thresholds shape the final result. The public receives a precise figure and a ready-made ideological category: 150,000 Norwegians. The mathematical surface gives an impression of greater certainty than the material can bear.
The figures were not yet publicly available when VG published the story. They were shared with the newspaper by C-REX and the Institute for Social Research. VG later corrected the method box twice. The newspaper first removed a statement that had been incorrectly listed as part of the survey. Then the definition of the thresholds for «support» and «strong support» was corrected.
Right-wing extremist violence is serious. Racist violence has taken lives in Norway. Research needs precise concepts, open data and honest dissemination when the results are used to describe large population groups. Political journalism that borrows the researcher’s authority also assumes responsibility for the weaknesses in the measuring instrument.
22 July as moral capital
Formerly conservative newspaper-of-record Aftenposten published on 17 July a story that one in four Norwegians believes the Labour Party has capitalised politically on 22 July. The proportion was 58 per cent among Progress Party voters and 38 per cent among Conservative voters. The head of C-REX interpreted the figures as an expression of political division, particularly on the right.
The question concerned the Labour Party’s conduct after the terrorist attack. Respondents assessed how Ap has used 22 July in subsequent political communication. Their answers say nothing in themselves about support for the terrorist’s ideology, violence or goals.
A person can acknowledge the right-wing extremist ideology of the attack, the perpetrator’s full responsibility and the terror’s targeting of the government quarter, Ap and AUF. The same person can assess the Labour Party’s subsequent communication as political exploitation. Both assessments can be present simultaneously and are based on different types of evidence.
When 58 per cent of Progress Party voters answer critically about Ap, the voters’ assessment is nevertheless placed into a narrative about the right’s relationship to 22 July. The extremism researcher delivers the interpretation. The Progress Party percentage gives the story political direction. The terror history adds a moral weight that makes ordinary party criticism suspicious.
In this way the Labour Party manages an enormous moral capital from a crime that the party itself was hit by. The grief, the victims and the ideology of the terror acquire political reuse. Criticism of this reuse can be registered as a problem with the critics’ relationship to history. It is a powerful and deeply unhealthy position in a democracy.
Brown-staining through biography and percentage calculation
The terrorist was a former member of the Progress Party. He joined in 1999, paid his membership fee for the last time in 2004 and was removed from the membership list in 2006. The terrorist attack happened five years later. He had also held positions in the Progress Party’s youth organisation, and the Progress Party immediately distanced itself from his actions and ideology.
This biographical point is repeatedly brought up when the Progress Party, immigration, 22 July and right-wing extremism are mentioned. The repetition creates an emotional connection between today’s Progress Party and a mass murderer who had left the party several years before the crime. The connection lacks common goals, approval, cooperation and organisational complicity.
The Progress Party’s programme builds on parliamentary democracy, elections, individual freedom and the rule of law and rejects the terrorist’s strategy of violence and dictatorial ideas. The old membership information nevertheless functions as a brown dye in the public sphere. A small dose can be dripped in when the Progress Party grows or the immigration debate becomes sharp.
Then comes the percentage calculation. The Progress Party voters’ criticism of Ap’s use of 22 July is interpreted through an extremism filter. Suspicion is attached to the voters through the opinion poll and to the party through the perpetrator’s old membership. The method is dirty, because it lets association replace demonstrated political connection.
The media’s political normality
The media’s political composition affects which connections are perceived as natural. The 2026 media survey showed that 54 per cent of the journalists surveyed placed themselves on the left. 19 per cent placed themselves on the right. Four per cent of journalists would have voted for the Progress Party, compared with 16 per cent in the population sample.
Among editors the Progress Party share was three per cent. The Labour Party received support from 25 per cent of journalists and 32 per cent of editors. These differences leave traces in editorial intuition, source selection and prioritisation.
An editorial culture with a strong leftward tilt will more easily perceive the connection between the Progress Party, 22 July and right-wing radicalism as relevant. An accusation from an AUF leader can be experienced as legitimate political criticism. Listhaug’s reply can be registered as a disturbing breach of Norwegian debate culture.
Similar political intuition produces similar news assessment through headlines, images, expert choices and sequence. The journalist can experience each choice as professionally self-evident. The public encounters the sum, and the sum gives the Labour Party a moral normal position that the party does not have to earn in the individual case.
The method was fully developed in 1989
I recently wrote about the debate between Gro Harlem Brundtland and Carl I. Hagen from 1989. I was six years old when it was broadcast. When I watched the entire broadcast now, I found the same structure in an older and unusually open form.
Gro turned Hagen’s publicly funded health model into American ambulances, private insurance and treatment according to ability to pay. The NRK host inserted a disputed Ap calculation into a question, challenged Hagen’s ideological boundaries, moved the topic when Hagen explained the payment mechanism and tried to stop long-term calculations in a pension debate.
Gro used words such as «bluff», «double game» and «double standards». Hagen’s corrections were described as «new versions» and «escape routes». When Hagen replied hard, she demanded a better tone.
The Labour Party was allowed to define the opponent’s policies, the consequences of them and the moral judgement on them. The NRK host helped the narrative forward through questions, interruptions and topic shifts. The public had few opportunities to check the premises during the broadcast.
Today’s version has more channels, research centres, opinion polls, expert environments and digital news surfaces. The political caricature acquires numbers, graphs and academic concepts around it. The opponent is placed near «right-wing radicalism», «illiberalism», «Trumpism», «conspiracy thinking» and «democratic backsliding».
The Labour Party’s dirty privilege
The brief exchange between Skjervø, Listhaug and Støre gathers the entire method into one TV moment. Skjervø calls the Progress Party «notoriously opposed to trade unions». Listhaug returns «notorious» and calls the claims lies. Støre lets the accusations against the Progress Party pass and declares Listhaug’s reply as a harbinger of democratic decline.
The Labour Party’s privilege consists in the right to assign roles before the matter has been examined. The party writes itself in as the representative of care, responsibility, democracy and historical gravity and assigns the Progress Party the roles of harsh, dangerous and morally suspect. The media relay the cast list and treat it as political normality.
This is a technique of domination with institutional support. The method protects power from precise scrutiny and makes direct correction socially costly. It gives the Labour Party a moral status that the party’s own conduct often undermines.
A democracy needs politicians who can tolerate being confronted with the words they use and the claims they make. The media must scrutinise the accusation that triggered the conflict. Researchers must show the definitions, questions and measuring instruments behind politically charged figures. The Labour Party must answer for its own use of power without hiding behind the country’s form of government.
The word «lie» cuts through the moral staging and sends attention back to the statement, the documentation and the sender’s responsibility. This effect explains the rapid call-outs from the tone police, the character judgements and the solemn warnings about democracy.