In a lengthy article in yesterday’s Times (£) Janice Turner reports an interview with the Danish Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is married to Stephen Kinnock, the Welsh Windbag’s son. The piece draws a comparison between the PM’s life and that portrayed in the recent TV series “Borgen” – a fictional account of Danish politics.
While discussing the difficulties of being both a mother and Prime Minister, Thorning-Schmidt is quoted thus:
On being asked “Do Danish mothers feel guilty at leaving their children while they work?” she replied, “No one feels guilty because the childcare is so good. They do things with the kids that you wouldn’t do that day. They go to the forest or the zoo, look at goats or sheep or whatever.”
Then asked, “Is she aware how torn British women feel about working?” She replied. “Yes, I have a sister-in-law and lots of friends in the UK.”
The article continues: Thorning-Schmidt’s domestic arrangements are unusual. Stephen Kinnock is a Director of the World Economic Forum and lives in Davos, Switzerland during the week, coming home most weekends.
“It’s not the normal way, but this is what we do and it works very well – although I do wish he was around a little more” … “And I can always call my parents-in-law and they come over” … “They are willing to travel across Europe if I need them – with a frozen lasagne and emergency cakes.”
So does this egregious Welsh clan, with a mixture of nepotism and ‘have infuence – will travel’ now manage the Danish strand of the Long March? Are Gramsci’s disciples now in the Christianborg Palace as well as No.10 Downing Street and The Oval Office?
A new twist on “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world?”
Just askin’.
“They are willing to travel across Europe if I need them – with a frozen lasagne and emergency cakes.” Whoaaah! Things must be rough in Copenhagen! And are cakes something you would haul across Europe in an emergency?
I adored previous PM Anders Fogh who stood up to the outraged, uppity Motoons imam types and said he didn’t have time to see them.
Not clear on where emergency cakes stand in national governance.
Classic New Labour shenanigans with the son trying to limit his tax obligations by deft residential footwork. Of course it’s all ok because he was following the rules and not a member of the Conservative Party or a rich Tory donor. Dynastic hypocrisy from the usual suspects.
I wonder if the “emergency cakes” were sprinkled with hundreds and thousands in honour of the Kinnock’s dynastic remuneration from the European socialist project?
Verity/Nicholas
“Not clear on where emergency cakes stand in national governance.”
“I wonder if the “emergency cakes” were sprinkled with hundreds and thousands in honour of the Kinnock’s dynastic remuneration from the European socialist project?”
As a family, they’ve certainly learned how to have their cake and eat it.
Famous Danes?
Tycho Brahe, The Little Mermaid, Hamlet, Jorrick, Victor Borge, and, at a stretch, Sandi ‘no neck’ Toksvig, …. er…… that’s it.
Yep, they really are a bundle of laughs, aren’t they?
The rest of the Kinnocks should go and live there too.
Re famous Danes:
Forgot to mention Niels Bohr who, like Tycho, was actually a great Dane.
…. and not forgetting Ejnar Hertzsprung who, like Tycho, is well known in astronomical circles.
Let’s not forget Harald Bohr, brother of Nils, whose ‘almost periodic functions’ are pertinent to planetary motion amongst other things. As for poor old Tycho Brahe, he is remembered, if at all, not so much as a great Dane or a great astronomer as a great urinator.
So far, so not much to do with the Kinnocks. So let’s not forget that it was one J Major who appointed not only Neil Kinnock as an EU Commissioner but also that useless tub of Common Purpose lard, Fat Pang, as Governor of Hong Kong. Neither of these election-losing wastes of oxygen ever went short of a New World Order sinecure again.
Bruce F (ACP)
The events surrounding Tycho’s unpleasant passing in 1601, his non-passing as it were, are covered in detail in Arthur Koestler’s “The Sleepwalkers.” Tycho would have benefitted greatly from the invention of the flexible catheter. Unfortunately Benjamin Franklin (whatta guy) didn’t invent one until 1752.
Straying into Dr Phibes territory, Tycho wore a prosthetic metal nose (his own having been cut off in a duel with his third cousin). He had several made from silver and also copper. Without superglue, must have been bugger at dinner parties – especially during the soup course.
Bruce F & David M (13:26)
A wonderful antidote to last night’s Dimbleby lecture. You got my chuckle glands (among others) working for the day. Thanks. Particularly as the nocturnal spasms had me out of the flea-pit four times in the night, two of them unproductive (so to speak), despite the tamsulosin and the finasteride!
What a way to start the day! Mean-spirited and terribly funny posts on Denmark, with special hat tips to the gruesome Kinnocks and Fat Pang who is now pretend chairman of the PPC … PPC … People’s Propaganda Corporation. He and Sandy Tosvik must have some laughs, eh?
What happened to Hans Christian Andersen?
I’d hate to think the Danish PM is importing such goodies to avoid the fat tax she implemented.