20060427,00

Get It Try It

More Swedish Animal Farm antics.



The lovely 'migration bureau' in Sweden is right in the palm of PM Göran 'Napoleon' Persson and his pig wife Anitra Steen. Persson's and Steen's tactic has been to encourage as much corruption as possible to minimise the risk they're ever attacked themselves.

In the luminary welfare state of Sweden the pigs who are more equal than others are getting more and more equaler all the time.

Now it's the foreigners bureau which is finally being put out of everyone's misery. How just closing the doors on this scandal of an institution can cost Swedish taxpayers an additional $100 million is of course something only the lackeys working for Persson would ever have the creativity to explain.

And now they have to have a 'going away party'. Of course they do. Taxpayer outlay again? One party? One evening? For what? Whatever: l'addition for Swedish taxpayers - again it's for one evening only - was $100,000.

Maybe you'd better read that figure again. It's like good old Adolf said: if you try to perpetrate a small lie, people will be all over you; use a big lie instead. They'll be so flabbergasted they won't be able to react.

Göran 'Napoleon' Persson has that tactic down cold.

The party was held on 31 March and even had an organiser - public relations firm Dream Communication - which of course meant the bill went even higher. [Why do you need consultants for a dinner event anyway? Whatever.]

And of course the head of the 'migration bureau' Barbro Holmberg was an honoured guest. She's a peach - she's pictured above of course - and she's the pride and joy of Persson. She's learned how to do everything the correct Persson way.

Holmberg won't speak to the press directly about the matter - of course not. She has a well paid press secretary to insulate her from scrutiny. His name is Tomas Hartman. He told the press that his boss says $100,000 for a single party for a bunch of crooks who've already embezzled countless millions is not too much to ask. Of the Swedish taxpayers that is. Who themselves have to sit at home and eat fläsk med bönor and watch festivities like the Nobel banquet on television.

That's as close as they'll ever get to the high life of Napoleon and his fellow pigs.

It's up to the general director of the bureau to take these expenses into consideration, says Hartman, thereby expertly passing the buck and bellowing the kind of 'kanslisvenska' that's known to get to the people on the street.

But it was only $100,000. Or was it? Actually there's another 'addition' that creeps in. For another $10,000. For what's specified only as 'entertainment'. And no one is really sure what kind of entertainment that was. But it's there. And the Swedish taxpayers had to pay that 'addition' too. Oh well.

And everybody at the party got a special commemoration CD to take home. How wonderful. When you've created as many scandals, abused people as seriously as they have - to the point where public opinion forces even the normally recalcitrant Persson to budge and get the place closed down - of course what everyone wants and needs - and has a right to ask of the Swedish taxpayers - is a CD commemorating all those 'good years'. That's acceptable.

More like they're celebrating how long they got away with screwing the Swedish nation and how even now they get away with the unbelievable.

The foreigners bureau even went so far as to establish a special bureau the sole concern of which is to close the foreigners bureau. Only in Sweden could something like this happen - and only with Göran 'Napoleon' Persson running the show.

Gull-Britt Rowa, the capable head of this silly temporary bureau, of course sticks her nose in the latest scandal.

It's awfully picky of people to criticise squandering $100,000 on a party for people who certainly deserve to be treated to it - especially considering it's costing an additional $100 million just to close the foreigners bureau down. You see if the courts can do a better job, an obviously irritated Rowa told the press.

Rowa insists the arrangements for the party were discussed carefully by her organisation.

We decided to go with the cheapest options, she said, and that's the way it turned out too, she added, amongst other things so the public relations firm could make a commemoration present.

And that's all Gull-Britt Rowa said. And her top boss general director Håkan Sandesjö was of course not available for comment. And he won't be. Not unless Göran 'Napoleon' Persson tells him to say something. Or decides he has to be sacrificed for the greater common good of the really high ranking pigs.

But look again at the picture at the top of this page. Look to the left part. That's a restaurant. And it's not just any old restaurant. That's the Opera Cellar in Stockholm where the el cheapo party was held. It's the classic Guide Michelin restaurant in Sweden and also its by far most expensive.

Footnote: Swedish prime minister Göran Persson is nicknamed 'Napoleon' not after the French dictator but after the character in George Orwell's Animal Farm. He doesn't at all look French.