Børk! Børk! Børk!

"Yorn desh born, der ritt de gitt der gue, Orn desh, dee born desh, de umn børk! børk! børk!"

As predicted in the media for many days now and reflected in the political betting, Sweden's centre-right opposition bloc has defeated the ruling Social Democrat party in the country's closest-fought general election for decades.

I have long been a great supporter of the Swedish Social Democrats, although judging from the responses posted on the web in response to my blog articles and letters to "The Guardian" they are not necessarily supporters of me or my views.

This in part is due to the crass comments I made earlier when I attacked left-wing extremists in the UK, saying: "If you lot weren't such a distraction of energy and effort we might have the kind of society by now that Sweden does (the Swedish Social Democrats having very sensibly told their left to **** off and form another party and let them get on with building the world's finest welfare state)."

I went on to explain that the Swedish Social Democrats are pretty much invincible, writing in a letter to "The Guardian": "I do hope the Labour party will follow these aspects of the Swedish model. Tony Blair could perhaps take a leaf out of Tage Erlander's book. This should see him retire in 2020."

The Swedish opposition - the Moderates, Liberal People's Party, Christian Democrats and Centre Party - form a bloc to the single party of the Social Democrats, charmingly known as the "Bourgeois Bloc" (which, as I explained in a previous posting, is how I think of our four-party opposition in Hackney - the Tories, LibDems, Greens and Respect).

So, I was nearly right, then. I understand that, in his victory speech, Fredrik Reinfeldt announced urgent reforms to the Swedish welfare state. I just hope Tony doesn't take a leaf out of the SD book and...