Self-help in Ikealand

There is not a week without an attempt to stick Carl Bildt with some factitious filth invented by the malevolent and hypocritical Swedish press.

Just after his inauguration as foreign minister this eldest and most senior of all Scandinavian Wunderkinder was accused of owning options in the Russian energy giant Gazprom (which he then sold) and therefore supposedly disqualified from his job. In a conflict between east and west, it was alleged, his personal interests might cause him to side with the Russkis. What calumny! Even to whisper such a thing borders on vandalising a national Ikealand shrine.

Then again, the Swedish tabloid Expressen told us some days ago that in fact ex-prime minister Bildt is very much of the George W. Bush party. This source has it that Bildt was signed up years ago by a powerful pressure group called Committee for the Liberation of Iraq to speak up for invading Iraq before it actually happened.

"He was an important recruit indeed," Bruce Jackson, chief honcho of the think-tank in question was quoted as saying. "The climate of opinion was not very good in European the time."

Bildt supposedly delivered and in return was offered a UN ambassadorship to Iraq which he did not accept. Instead he went to the advisory board of Legg Mason, the US capital investment group with links to the technology and arms industry. He is an option holder in that company, too. Above and beyond all this Bildt is unquestionably a great European too, not only leading his country into the EU but also holding shares and options in Kreab, the Nordic lobbying firm.

So it is totally unfair of Expressen to joke with a headline like: "Foreign mini-ster for sale!" The man is truly neutral and balanced in a traditional way of doing things in peace-loving, non-allied Ikealand.

The opposition desperately wants his scalp but they should read his story instead and remember that the social democratic icon Olof Palme loved to show the middle finger to the Yankees while round the back helping the CIA and sales of Bofors guns.

The present conservative prime minister of Sweden is called Fredrik Reinfeldt. (Don’t bother to remember the name, no one else does). Conspirators in Sweden want him to get Bildt to fall on his sword before it is too late.

Why should he? Admittedly two female members of the Swedish cabinet had to resign. But they had lied about their personal finances. One paid an illegal immigrant to babysit and the other watched TV without a licence.

Bildt has never lied about his businesses. He is just an independent soul, an Ikealand patriot to boot, who has accepted a dirty, underpaid job just to help his inexperienced fellow conservatives navigate the turbulent, shark-infested waters of politics. I prefer to congratulate this great man for finding a way of earning the living he so richly deserves.

There is not a week without an attempt to stick Carl Bildt with some factitious filth invented by the malevolent and hypocritical Swedish press.