– Trygve is a propaganda machine – VG

– Trygve has been a propaganda machine that comes with simple, rhetorical labels. But the only content he brings is reversal, regulations and subsidies, says District Minister Linda Hofstad Helleland to VG:

– It is the Conservatives who come up with labels, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum answers.

On Wednesday, the government presented its new plans for District Norway in Bø – where NRK is in the process of recording the next season of “Rådebank”, and several of the actors are present to shine on the session.

The district minister gets mad with excitement when she sees the actors – and reveals that she has a background that robs herself.

– All girls from Klæbu have had a small career as a robber girl in the back of a car, she says goodbye to the assembled press corps before she slips into one of the cars with trained agility.

Robbery on the Prime Minister

Solberg also gets a ride in a Lincold continental 1970 model, and comments on the robber’s visit as follows:

– Bø is a place with lots of positive growth. And they identify with rural culture in a different way. I think that’s cool, she says after the drive down the strip in the center.

The government has for several years been criticized for its district policy, and the Center Party in particular has grown big in being in opposition to the Conservatives in the area.

Now District Minister Linda Hofstad takes Helleland to the counter, and goes straight to the throat of the SP leader.

– Propagandamaskin

– An image has been created of the government as not very district-friendly. What does it come from?

– Trygve is a propaganda machine that with its speechwriters for eight years has hammered this into people, Helleland says.

– So it’s Vedum’s fault?

– No, but he has been an effective driving force in portraying the districts as if they have to stand with a hat in hand. We want growth, life and pipes and development.

– Can you elaborate on what you mean by him being a propaganda machine?

– For eight years he has pitted people and city and country against each other. He has chopped loose, and black paints the situation. He has been a propaganda machine that comes up with simple, rhetorical labels. But the only content he brings is reversals, regulations and subsidies.

– Simple rhetorical moves

– Is not it an equally simple rhetorical label and call him a propaganda machine?

– When you ask me why the Center Party succeeds in making such a cheer by the government, I answer it. But I like Trygve very much, me.

– But in one moment you call having a propaganda machine, and in the next you say that he is doing simple rhetorical labels. Are you not doing exactly the same thing now?

– He’s been doing it for eight years …

– While you’re just doing it today?

– … That is why I have presented these measures and specific policies for the districts in Norway.

Solberg comments on the “propaganda machine” statement to his minister as follows:

– I do not use such expressions on others. But I think he will soon have to attend a debate on substance. One of his main issues is the abolition of an administrative level, at the same time as we have real challenges in getting people back to work, and in improving our education system, says the Prime Minister to VG.

Vedum: Gets used to the labels

Vedum himself takes the attack from the Conservatives with crushing calm:

– The Conservatives have new labels on me all the time. For a while I was backward, then I was a populist before Erna Solberg called me cynical. And now there is a certain propaganda machine. All according to the Conservatives. They can call me whatever they want, but I think they misunderstand a few basic things, he says and elaborates:

– It is not me who has started the bunad guerrilla, or the revolt against the regional reform or the police reform or cut the commuter deduction. It is not because of me that people in the 260 municipalities that have lost government jobs are dissatisfied with the decision – at the same time as they see that the state has continued to grow.

For counterattacks

Vedum believes that the Conservatives themselves are engaged in rhetorical tricks and fixations.

– They called the centralization of the police a «local police reform», after advice from a First House top (Sigbjørn Aanes (H), former state secretary for Erna Solberg, journ.anm.) And they called the regional reform a «democracy reform» at the same time as they introduced the one by force. So people get to judge for themselves. But I’m concerned with real issues in real people’s lives.

– The Conservatives will probably continue with new labels on me, and I will take it easy. I am interested in politics, says Vedum.

– Creates reactions

Although the discussion about town against village is getting more and more attention in the public debate, Solberg does not believe that the case will be decisive for the election. Then it is health, the elderly and working life after the corona pandemic that becomes most important, the Prime Minister believes.

– In other words: We have implemented several reforms, all with the goal of providing better services and offers no matter where you live. Then we make changes that also involve changes in where people are employed, and that creates reactions.

She believes that the police reform is an example of a reform that arouses local dissatisfaction with change – but which provides better legal security throughout the country.

Solberg believes that the police reform in particular has strengthened the police’s ability to conduct digital investigations.

– We have gathered a competence environment in the police to ensure that we are better at cracking down on crime where it actually happens. When crime has moved from the street to data, people have to sit together and work on it.

Will take hackers

– The investigation of morality cases and child abuse has become much better after the reform. It also emphasizes the Attorney General.

Solberg believes that the price will then be that some district offices “which are open for a couple of hours, a couple of days a week” will be closed.

– The reform means more security for us and our children, and that it becomes less likely that an old man is sitting and talking to your daughter on a computer system, whether you live on the outermost island in Norway or in the middle of Oslo, and sell nude photos on to serious abuse forums.

Skeptical of small counties

The government has met with great dissatisfaction with the forced merger of Akershus, Buskerud and Østfold in particular to Viken and Troms and Finnmark.

– It is easy for Finnmark to say that “we are doing well alone”. Yes, they do now? Do we think they delivered well on all their services? Although things have improved in recent years, they have the country’s lowest completion rate in upper secondary school. And school is the main task of the county municipality.

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