I only ask because YLE reports:
"Minister of Education Sari Sarkomaa of the National Coalition Party has decided to step down from government in order to spend more time with her family".So is Sari being a good mum or has she been a naughty girl?
"Let it be one cheerful rational voice amidst the din of mourners and polemics." Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1840. A Brit-in-Helsinki's blog about global politics, climbing, cycling, things that annoy me and other bits of life. But not necessarily in that order.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Spending more time with your family
I'm wondering if any Finnish readers of this blog can say if when a Finnish politicians says they are resigning to "spend more time with their family" it literally means that? Or whether like in anglo-saxon political parlance it really means you have been caught visiting hookers, getting drunk for breakfast, taking large sums on money in brown envelopes from dodgy businessmen, sending dirty text messages to page boys, or attempting to sell the position of the junior senator of Illinois?
I only ask because YLE reports:
I only ask because YLE reports:
I don't have any inside information so I can't know, but the press seems to buy it. In fact, they all pretty much said "she was one of the better ministers". So at least in light of the current information, she is a good mum.
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ReplyDeletePolitically it’s a very smart move from her. It frees her from a large amount of political responsibility and in return she gets a maximum amount of “aah she loves her family, bless her” support. It should be noted that she will continue as a MP and her resignation guarantees her a landslide of votes from here to eternity.
ReplyDeleteShe gets full page spreads in all the women’s magazines, which is the way to go these days for any Finnish female politician. I know, because my wife gets all the Finnish ladies mags and I of course read them. This is why my knowledge of Finnish politics, interior drapery and the preparation of canapés is of an excellent standard.
So how come she stuck in the job for two years and now all of a sudden her family needs her?
An alternate explanation for that excuse was given by an interview subject in Washington D.C., who said that when you want to quit when you're in a high post in government, you should always do it "to spend more time with your family" and never because "everyone I work with is corrupt / stupid". He said that often the overwhelming temptation is to say the latter, but saying the former keeps the door open for future postings.
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