Win Some, Lose Some

The recent Swedish elections were won by a right-wing/centre coalition. Political commentators agree that this is largely a social democrat victory in disguise: in order to win, the right-wingers had to adopt a set of politics modelled on those of Tony Blair's New Labour. They out-social-democrated the social democrats.

A lot of seat-shuffling is going on at the moment in Parliament on Helgeandsholmen ("Hospital Island") in the centre of Medieval Stockholm. From a skeptical point of view, this gives occasion to celebrate, but also to grind our teeth a bit.

The right/center coalition took a lot of seats from the left, but there was also a significant reallocation of seats among the coalition's parties. The Liberals and the Christian Democrats lost seats to the Conservatives. And so we say farewell to both of the previous Parliament's creationists, Christian Democrats Tuve Skånberg and Per Landgren.

Less satisfying is the entry of two Green Party parliamentarians who are supporters of non-evidence-based healthcare. Gunvor G. Ericson is known as a great friend of such practices in general, and particularly of those current within Anthroposophy. Mats Pertoft has a history of Anthroposophy activism and is now a member of an organisation devoted to the dissemination of non-evidence-based ideas about cellphone radiation etc., Vågbrytaren.

My politics are lefty green. It's really too bad that the Greens are hampered by tendencies like those of Ericson and Pertoft. Science and tech together with population pressure have screwed up the environment. The only way we can keep the damage from spiraling out of control, the only way we can repair the damage, is with the aid of better science and tech. No spiritual guru or magic potion will do that for us.

Thanks to Jesper Jerkert for info.

[More blog entries about politics, skepticism, Sweden; politik, valet, skepsis, skepticism.]