Swedes And Turnips

Laugh? I nearly cried. Just 10 days after Fredrik Reinfeldt's centre-right coalition defeated my beloved Swedish Social Democrats and formed the new government, two ministers have resigned amidst accusations of financial irregularity. On Saturday Trade Minister Maria Borelius resigned after admitting hiring nannies without paying taxes and employer's fees. Today Culture Minister Stego Chilo also resigned on similar grounds, after admitting that she had not paid her television licence fee for 16 years and had not paid employer taxes when taking on a nanny.

What a bunch of turnips, I say. You don't get British Labour Government ministers resigning over little mistakes like these. Indeed, you don't get out government ministers resigning over much larger mistakes, such as failing to declare permanent £multi-million loans, starting international wars over non-existent WMD and selling honours for cash.

Failing to declare fees paid to nannies, indeed! What kind of nonsense is this? If we all resigned over this sort of thing there'd be none of us left.

Linda, about our cleaning lady...