The topic of the evening’s debate was the Labor Party’s trouble in the polls. According to Nettavisen’s March poll from InFact, the Labor Party would have lost nine of its parliamentary representatives if the poll had been the election result.
In a measurement carried out by Opinion for FriFagbevegelse, Dagsavisen and Avisene’s news agency, it appears that the Right is now bigger than all parties on the left. The Labor Party received a support of only 15.5% in this survey.
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– The Center Party destroys
Group leader in Stavanger Labor Party Dag Mossige believes that it is the Center Party that is destroying the Labor Party, and wants them out of government.
– People do not feel that we put the most important things first in politics. Now there is far too much noise about matters that don’t need to be so noisy, he says and points to the reversal of the merger of Kristiansand municipality, which he calls an example of horror.
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Solvang asks party secretary Kjersti Stenseng to answer why the Labor Party is letting the Center Party trump through on an issue they themselves have opposed.
– Why does the Labor Party allow it to happen?
– It’s no secret that the biggest involvement there has been in the Center Party, but that’s how it is when you have two parties in a government. We have to give and take, replies Stenseng.
– But I agree with Mossinge that that is not what we should be talking about now, we have to talk about what concerns people’s everyday lives. That is what is needed to get us up in the polls, not to talk about reversal, but to talk about good policies to give people security.
Stenseng believes that it is complex why Labor does so poorly in the surveys. Program leader Solvang challenges her on whether she thinks the party does a good job during the day, and on an acknowledgment that what they are doing is not working.
– It’s not good enough, no. But we believe that the policy we are delivering now is the answer to getting us safely through the crisis.
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– Everything has just gone downhill
Party veteran Thorbjørn Berntsen, who participated via video, believes the Labor Party went wrong after the election, and should rather have merged with SV.
– There would have been a clearer marking of the dividing lines in politics. The results and opinion polls speak for themselves, he says.
Berntsen also commented on Stenseng’s summary that the Labor Party achieves a lot of good, but that it does not pay off politically.
– That will be the big mystery, why don’t we get support for the policy that creates good results? Then the explanation must lie somewhere.
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– When we get into the situation we are in now, we have to look at the entire management structure, and assess whether we do not need a renewal of the party leadership. As the situation is now, we are simply standing still, that is to say, it is only going backwards. We can’t just sit back and watch this continue, says Berntsen.
When Solvang asks if that includes Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, the answer is yes.
– The situation is that during the time that Jonas has been party leader and prime minister, opinion polls and everything have only gone down. So then the question is whether we should do like the ostrich and bury our heads in the sand and let the world take its course or whether we should tackle this here. I have no doubt that we must have changes in the party leadership, and that is a point of view that I know is shared by many others.
