Pär NuderI went along to a round table discussion this evening, organised by Policy Network and CER. Former Swedish Finance Minister Pär Nuder and UK Minister for the Third Sector Ed Miliband were speaking.

The debate was interesting enough, but more importantly it started me thinking about Pär Nuder’s political ideology and approach. First of all, he’s far more impressive live than you would think; much better than the slight, almost geeky persona from the election campaign posters.

Secondly, he is known for his 5-point system of political leadership.

This he advanced in this 2003 speech to the LO stats och kartellkonferens in Gol, Norway.

The translation from the Swedish is roughly as follows:
För det första: Jag förstår hur du har det.
First, I understand your situation
För det andra: Jag tror jag vet varför.
Second, I think I know why
För det tredje: Det är fel. Du borde inte ha det så här.
Third, it is wrong, you shouldn’t have it like this
För det fjärde: SÃ¥ här borde det vara istället.
Fourth, it should be like this instead
För det femte: Så här gör vi för att komma dit.
Fifth, this is how we can work to get there

In terms of values, it’s as follows:
Empati
Empathy
Analys
Analysis
VÃ¥rdering
Values
Vision
Vision
Åtgård
Measures

I’ve done some research to work out whether any of this is based on some academic theory, and can only come up with this somewhat bizarre cached page from Google.

However, regardless of where it has actually come from, Nuder’s list of points actually seems quite good to me. In each and every leader you see some deficiency in at least one of these areas, while Blair’s relative accomplishment in each of these is perhaps a component of his success.

I’ll leave anyone reading this to do their own analysis of whether how Gordon Brown is doing on this list…

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