Posts tagged as:

Social Democratic Alliance

Politics and business in the lead-up to the collapse: more sordid revelations

June 7, 2010

One of the recurring annoyances for Icelandic politicians over the last few weeks has been the relentless demand by the public that they reveal who their main supporters were in their election campaigns in recent years. After all, the economic meltdown seems to have been at least partly caused by the unholy alliance of politics [...]

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First exit polls: Best Party front runner in Reykjavík

May 30, 2010

Well, the first exit polls in the municipal elections are in. As predicted by the polls the Best Party is largest in Reykjavík, with around 8,000 votes of around 21,000 ballots counted. The Independence Party gets around 7,000 of those votes and loses two council seats. According to those figures, the Best Party gets six [...]

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Black Report: Let the cleansing begin

April 20, 2010

I don’t think I can overstate just how important the publication of the fact-finding report into the bank collapse [aka the Black Report] is for this nation. It’s our own truth commission report, and already it’s causing major waves. Eva Joly, in an interview with DV last weekend, said: … I would like to emphasize [...]

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On herding cats

March 29, 2010

So, the Social Democratic Alliance held its national congress this weekend and by all accounts Prime Minister Jóhanna held a thunderous speech in which she pulled no punches. Among other things, she talked about the difficulty of “tightening the ranks” within the current government coalition and said that getting some of the Left-Green MPs to [...]

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What’s next for the Icelandic government?

March 7, 2010

So the big question around here now is: What will happen to the government now that the Icesave referendum is over. The opposition of course keeps banging about how this represents a vote of no confidence for the government and that they should resign, while Jóhanna and Steingrímur insist that they have no intention of [...]

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The mystery of the excluded parties

January 28, 2010

The most bizarre news item of the day was that our Finance Minister Steingrímur J. Sigfússon has gone off to the UK and Holland to discuss the Icesave monster with high ranking officials — along with the leaders of the Independence and Progressive Parties [Bjarni Benediktsson and Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson]. I suppose it’s designed to [...]

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New Iceland. Ur doin’ it wrong.

December 29, 2009

One of the fallouts of the meltdown here in Iceland an increase in all sorts of taxes. This was predictable enough and is, obviously, a way for the state to compensate for loss of revenues and the growing national debt. The new tax law was pushed through parliament in a big rush just before Christmas. [...]

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YT strikes in the Huffington Post

July 15, 2009

My first post for the nice people at the Huffpo: Fury in Iceland as disgraced banking moguls request loan write-off [Er ... apologies if it sounds slightly familiar.] IN OTHER NEWS Tense times right now here in Niceland, as parliament is debating whether or not to enter into talks with the EU. It’s been going [...]

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