Helle Thorning-Schmidt defies ‘curse of Kinnock’ to become Danish PM
Former colleagues describe her as a classy and classic social democrat – a sort of Danish version of Harriet Harman or Yvette Cooper. After a series of humiliating electoral defeats, Europe’s left at last has something to cheer following the narrow victory on Thursday of Helle Thorning-Schmidt in Denmark’s general election.
On Saturday Denmark’s first female prime minister begins the delicate task of forging a new centre-left government. The Social Democrat leader and daughter-in-law of Neil and Glenys Kinnock won a wafer-thin majority over the centre-right coalition of Lars L?kke Rasmussen, bringing down the curtain on decade of Liberal-Conservative rule.
Rasmussen visited the queen’s palace on Friday to hand in his notice.
Thorning-Schmidt told Danish TV her priority was to “get a grip on the economy”. air yeezy She is likely to lead a coalition of her Social Democrats with the Social People’s party, Social Liberals and Red-Green Alliance. The Red Greens are expected to try to pull Thorning-Schmidt further to the left in return for their parliamentary support.
After leading in the polls, she secured a mere five-seat majority in the 179-seat parliament. Critics predict inevitable tensions with her coalition partners could mean Denmark’s new, progressive government and its softer line on immigration, is short-lived.
Nevertheless, Thorning-Schmidt’s victory in a Europe dominated by the right means she defied what has been dubbed the “curse of the Kinnocks”. Denmark’s new leader is married to Stephen Kinnock; Neil and Glenys are doting grandparents to the couple’s children, Johanna, 14, and Camilla, 11. In a speech to the Labour party conference last year, Thorning-Schmidt, 44, hailed her in-laws as the “best in the world”.
She grew up in the small town of Ish?j, south-west of Copenhagen, which expanded during the 1970s construction boom and saw a large influx of migrant workers from Turkey. She described Ish?j as a model of “how the welfare society grew and created new opportunities for people who hadn’t experienced that kind of prosperity”. Today Ish?j has a reputation of struggling with gang crime.
She met Kinnock in the early 1990s when they were students at the College of Europe in Bruges. “It didn’t take long for both of us to realise that this was serious,” she later recalled. She served one term as an MEP between 1999 and 2004, becoming Social Democrat leader in 2005. With Helle in Copenhagen, Stephen lived much of the time in Switzerland working for the World Economic Forum.
For high-powered Euro-couples, this arrangement is usual. But it provoked embarrassing questions last year from Denmark’s tax authorities, as well as unfounded tabloid rumours about the state of the Kinnock-Schmidt marriage. In the week leading up to the election, Thorning-Schmidt appeared with her husband on an evening talkshow on the Danish broadcaster TV2. Asked what he was doing while she was out campaigning, Kinnock answered: “I’m taking care of the children, doing a bit of cooking and trying to do a bit of DIY around the house. But that’s not going too well.”
Asked how they felt about the tax affairs reappearing during the election campaign, he said: “We have been through it already.”
Friends are indignant at this negative press reporting. “This Kinnock dynasty thing is rubbish,” the Labour MEP Richard Howitt said. “It reflects badly on Britain, not on her.” He added: “She’s a person in her own right.” He described Thorning-Schmidt as “personable, funny and warm”, and an exponent of anti-Osborne politics. She campaigned to raise taxes for the better off, and invest in education and welfare.
Denis MacShane, the MP and former Labour Europe minister, called her “steady, serious”, and liked inside the European social democrat political network.
“She has held her party together in difficult times and nudged a set of policies that show how Nordic social democracy can listen to voters and win support,” he said. “She is a well organised mother and other than a fondness for wearing red she is more interested in political ideas than what she is wearing.” MacShane is alluding to the nickname “Gucci Helle”, a reference to her alleged fondness for expensive clothes.
More damaging, perhaps, is the accusation that she is a lightweight.
Earlier this year the sociologist and author Henrik Dahl launched a tirade against the Danish political left and Thorning-Schmidt in particular. He called her “the weakest leader the party has ever had”. He added: “She can’t write or improvise … She doesn’t possess presence or any greater visions.”
This is unfair. But it is certainly wishful thinking to paint her victory as the beginning of a triumphant comeback for Europe’s beleaguered left. In Spain, the incumbent socialists are staring at defeat; in France the left has yet to agree on a convincing presidential candidate. One analyst, meanwhile, describes Denmark’s election this week as “un-European” – parochially focused on domestic issues rather than the raging existential crisis engulfing the eurozone.
Denmark – a country of 5.5 million people – is in comparatively good fiscal shape, Daniel Korski, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations said. Like Britain, Denmark is outside the eurozone; unlike Britain it isn’t struggling to pay off a massive deficit. “It has prudently paid off most of its foreign debt. Economically Denmark is like a province of northern Germany,” Korski said.
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