Labour draws up battle lines (Aftenposten)

Labour Party chairman Thorbjørn Jagland is attempting to write off the centre alliance as a viable government alternative. Instead he is conjuring up the vision of an alliance between the Conservatives, the Christian Democrats and the Progress Party as the alternative to a Labour government. The Labour Party is going to turn the campaign into a battle for or against the welfare state. These simple alternatives are intended to boost a party which Mr Jagland asserts is not in trouble. During yesterday’s national executive committee meeting no criticism was made about the party leadership. "A lot of people have learned from what happened last time," said Mr Jagland, referring to the internal dissent which plagued the party’s 1999 local election campaign.

Jagland calls for end to internal unrest (Dagsavisen)

Labour Party chairman Thorbjørn Jagland has had enough of the criticism being levelled at the party leadership from its own members. He has accused party colleagues of "fighting on both sides of the front line" and ruining the Labour Party’s results in the opinion polls. "When the polls are bad our own people get correspondingly depressed, and so the polls get even worse," commented Mr Jagland.

Not afraid of move to the right (Dagsavisen)

According to Christian Democrat chairman Kjell Magne Bondevik, joining a coalition government together with a larger party such as the Conservatives on current form would be more acceptable to the Christian Democrats if the Prime Minister were to come from their own party. A prime minister leads the government and fronts its policies, he says. Mr Bondevik believes it would be best for the Christian Democrats to join a government made up of parties which are approximately equal in size, but that size differences could in part be compensated by taking prime ministerial responsibility.

Bondevik warns the Conservatives (Aftenposten)

The Conservatives will have to manage without the help of the Christian Democrats if Jan Petersen wants to fulfil all his tax promises. Kjell Magne Bondevik has clearly indicated that he will not take part in a scramble to cut taxes as much as possible. Mr Bondevik believes that on tax issues the Christian Democrats are closest to the Labour Party, and he points out that the public services still have many tasks as yet undone. He nevertheless hopes to iron out some of the tax system’s inequalities.

Telenor boss wants NOK 15 billion more (Dagens Næringsliv)

Telenor’s chief executive, Tormod Hermansen, is asking for permission to increase the company’s share capital by NOK 15 billion. Mr Hermansen and Telenor are planning a large-scale round of acquisitions, and the extra billions will give them the necessary room for manoeuvre. Mr Hermansen and executive vice president Torstein Moland presented their plans to the Storting’s business and industry committee yesterday.

Interest rates set to rise before September (Dagbladet)

One of Norway’s leading economists, Handelsbanken’s Knut Anton Mork, is predicting that interest rates will rise before the autumn. "I think we will see the first rise in interest rates by 19 September," he said. If the rise comes ahead of the election it will create even more trouble for the already hard pressed Labour government, says election expert Frank Aarebrot.

Naval victory (Aftenposten)

The Norwegian navy will be almost twice as large as the Government intended. With over 40 ships instead of the Government’s planned 20 the navy emerged as the undisputed winner from the Storting’s defence budget negotiations. The Headquarters Defence Command Norway was surprised by the substantial increase in naval strength. The big question now is where the money is going to come from to keep the navy’s ships operational.

Worth Noting

• "The Labour Party has become too preoccupied with wheeler-dealing in the Storting. The party has lost its former alliance partners in the community, and has lacked the ability to gain new ones. That is not how you win an election today," said Herman Kristoffersen, Labour mayor of Tromsø. (Dagsavisen)
• They quarrel about taxes, pre-school care and local authority funding, but MPs across the entire political spectrum, from the Progress Party to the Socialist Left Party, are agreed on one thing – they need more help to do the job. Yesterday they awarded themselves NOK 48 million. Now each MP will be able to hire his or her own adviser. The money will be allocated over a four-year period. (Dagbladet)
• Having twice refused to attend the Storting’s business and industry committee hearing on Telenor’s privatization, the leadership of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) changed its mind and turned up yesterday after all. (Dagsavisen)
• Sampo, the Finnish financial services company, has applied for tax relief for those Storebrand shareholders who chose to be paid in Sampo shares instead of cash. The Ministry of Finance has a history of granting this kind of application. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• Per Østvold, of the Norwegian Union of Transport Workers, is calling for a cut in taxes on electricity and petrol. He is giving his full support to the Conservatives and the Progress Party on this issue. He believes the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), to which his own union belongs, must demand higher wages next year if inflation remains as high as today. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• Education Minister Trond Giske is willing to allow students who fail to pass their exams to claim financial support – on condition that they have kept up with their class-work! (Dagsavisen)

Today’s comment from Dagsavisen

The Labour Party has never received such a hammering from the voters as they have done in the past few weeks. If people vote in the way recent polls say they will, the Labour Party will lose office and a large number of seats. Yet opinion polls are not elections. They measure the mood of the moment among the electorate, not what voters will actually do on polling day. Yesterday the Labour Party’s national executive committee started work to prepare the party’s election manifesto. It is a job that should have been done a long time ago. So far this year it has been the Conservatives and not the Labour Party who have set the political agenda. The majority of people have not been able to see where the Government’s political programme is leading. If the Labour Party is to win the election, its political message must be much more clearly expressed.