12/25/2023 0 Comments The go getters from swedenMost seriously of all, economic equality – which many believe is the foundation of societal success – is decreasing. Somehow, though, the government still managed to find £2m to fund a two-year tax-scandal investigation largely concerned, as far as I can make out, with the sexual orientation of the prime minister's husband, Stephen Kinnock. The Danish national rail company has skirted bankruptcy in recent years, and the trains most assuredly do not run on time. "But at least the trains run on time!" I hear you say. ![]() (The other day, I turned up at my local A&E to be told that I had to make an appointment, which I can't help feeling rather misunderstands the nature of the service.) According to the World Cancer Research Fund, the Danes have the highest cancer rates on the planet. Presumably the correlative of this is that Denmark has the best public services? According to the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment rankings (Pisa), Denmark's schools lag behind even the UK's. As a spokesperson I interviewed at the Danish centre-right thinktank Cepos put it, they effectively work until Thursday lunchtime for the state's coffers, and the other day and half for themselves. The Danes of course also have highest taxes in the world (though only the sixth-highest wages – hence the debt, I guess). Their big new drama series, Arvingerne ( The Legacy, when it comes to BBC4 later this year) is stunning, but the reality of prime-time Danish TV is day-to-day, wall-to-wall reruns of 15-year-old episodes of Midsomer Murders and documentaries on pig welfare. I'm afraid I have to set you straight on Danish television too. Worth bearing that in mind the next time a Dane wags her finger at your patio heater. Those offshore windmills may look impressive as you land at Kastrup, but Denmark burns an awful lot of coal. Perhaps the Danes' dirtiest secret is that, according to a 2012 report from the Worldwide Fund for Nature, they have the fourth largest per capita ecological footprint in the world. How can they afford all those expensively foraged meals and hand-knitted woollens? Simple, the Danes also have the highest level of private debt in the world (four times as much as the Italians, to put it into context enough to warrant a warning from the IMF), while more than half of them admit to using the black market to obtain goods and services. As a result, productivity is worryingly sluggish. Why do the Danes score so highly on international happiness surveys? Well, they do have high levels of trust and social cohesion, and do very nicely from industrial pork products, but according to the OECD they also work fewer hours per year than most of the rest of the world. Protesters clash with police at an asylum centre near Copenhagen in 2008. ![]() So let's remove those rose-tinted ski goggles and take a closer look at the objects of our infatuation … Life here is pretty comfortable, more so for indigenous families than for immigrants or ambitious go-getters (Google " Jantelov" for more on this), but as with all the Nordic nations, it remains largely free of armed conflict, extreme poverty, natural disasters and Jeremy Kyle. True, they claim to be the happiest people in the world, but why no mention of the fact they are second only to Iceland when it comes to consuming anti- depressants? And Sweden? If, as a headline in this paper once claimed, it is "the most successful society the world has ever seen", why aren't more of you dreaming of "a little place" in Umeå?Īctually, I have lived in Denmark – on and off – for about a decade, because my wife's work is here (and she's Danish). It is time to redress the imbalance, shed a little light Beyond the Wall. Enough of the unblinking idolatry of all things knitted, bearded, rye bread-based and licorice-laced. Enough with the envious reports on the abolition of gender-specific pronouns. Enough with the impractical minimalist interiors. I have contributed to the relentless Tetris shower of print columns on the wonders of Scandinavia myself over the years but now I say: enough! Nu er det nok! Enough with foraging for dinner.
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