Støre tells Solberg, ‘you won’t listen’

Erna SolbergPrime Minister Erna Solberg, and party leader in the Labor Party Jonas Gahr Støre.Photo: Rune Stoltz Bertinussen / NTB scanpix

Arbeiderpartiet (Ap) leader, Jonas Gahr Støre, rejected the criticism that he’d characterized the Norwegian population as becoming colder, though he believes that the prime minister is making Norway a colder society.

 

‘Erna Solberg is one of the few, perhaps the only, of conservative leaders in Europe, who has taken the far right into her government. She’s opened for language that creates divide, and sets groups of people against each other. I don’t think Erna Solberg sees this, but Norway has changed. We’ve become a colder, and lesser community, and four years of this is enough’, said Støre during a debate against Solberg on NRK on Tuesday night.

The Prime Minister immediately shot back, ‘Jonas stamps the Norwegian population as having made Norway a colder society. There must be some good in this country when we are the happiest country in the world.

On the question of whether they’d feel uneasy if a daughter or son chose to marry an immigrant, there are still few who say they are worried about it’, said Solberg.

‘I haven’t stamped the population. But you are in charge of the government. A government leader who travels to Sweden to create and spread fear is bad politics, Solberg,’ said Støre.

Solberg said the debates today are no tougher than they were twenty years ago. She also showed that Norway set a record of refugee settlements during the refugee crisis.

Towards the end of the discussion over whether Norway had become a colder society, the temperature rose between the two politicians.

‘Your policies can lead us in the wrong direction, and then we must tell you. But I don’t think Solberg wants to listen, because she doesn’t see it’, said Støre.

‘You have stamped Norwegian people as being colder,’ repeated Solberg.

‘I think the Norwegian people are going to let you know on September the 11th that Norway hasn’t become a colder society,’ she said, somewhat cryptically.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today