This is a good point. They’ll surely try to do that. I’m concerned for the Finns to be honest. Throughout history, they have been subject to invasions coming from the East, and as you say, a hostile Russia will see Finland’s success as one of the richest, best organized and democratic countries in the world as a thorn in their side. An antithesis of Putin’s dream so to say. A country where until today, a PM could go out with friends and having a drink without fear of any backlash.
I remember when being young, my mother told me that she had been sitting in a train heading from Bern to Geneva. Georges-André Chevallaz, one of our federal councillors from that time (one of the seven PMs here) was sitting there as well, in the same wagon. At some point, while reading papers, he fell asleep, and wasn’t really very elegant, while sitting there with closed eyes and open mouth…
Of course, nothing bad happened for him. There were no smartphones around, and more importantly, no dickheads who would want to sell a pic from him to the most offering media. Today, I can’t imagine what trouble he’d be in if a pic from him in that state had reached a media. He’d never had heard the end of it.
He would be the utter laughing stock of the country for the rest of his career, just because of being human. That’s why you probably never see a top politician take a train these days anymore. They are all using big limousines or helicopters, with body guards and what not… it’s a dangerous evolution imo.
Sleeping while at parliament is a totally different kettle of fish, especially when it’s done on purpose in order to undermine the political function. Rees-Mogg dit it some time ago, isn’t it?
This is a crisis first and foremost for Sanna Marin and the Social Democrats, not for Finland. The film was leaked by someone she trusted not to leak it and she is bound to learn from that if given the chance. Election coming up in April though and opposition party leads the polls.
But this is taken quite, quite seriously in Finland because of the times and security politics. Around the days this happened there were air space violations by Russian fighter jets and unfortunately for Marin there is a perception amongst Fins that she would have been unable to take a sober decision had something bad happened. But in theory she was off duty of course. But the climate is a bit special now. The problem here is not really decorum (of course, for a minority, that will be a problem too), which would certainly have been a greater political factor in the UK as an example. It’s about Security Politics and credibility.
She is an amazing and very attractive young woman. That’s probably the problem.
I scrolled through this twitter thread and found videos of lots of world politicians dancing and nobody really cares. Sometimes it’s just fun, sometimes it’s a bit embarrassing, but really nothing that should be taken too serious imo.
