That time I danced with the Danish prime minister.

(I wrote this for Politiken in the run-up to the last election in Denmark).

Last month, in the council chamber of my local town hall, the mayor shook my hand and, like a municipal fairy godmother waving a magic wand (in his case, a glass of warm cava), bestowed upon me Danish citizenship.

Back in my homeland England, the queen died, the pound collapsed and the national football team lost to Italy. A regrettable yet proportionate response to events, I feel.

I now finally have the same legal status as our elderly labradoodle, Luna, who has held a Danish pet passport for many years. Thus I am entitled to a number of perks and privileges to which the indigenous population are born: I may break the speed limit without fear of being deported; I can talk in the quiet carriage on the train, I may submit a photograph of a sunset to the TV weather; and I can participate in the greatest democratic show on earth: a Danish general election.

So, what can the Danes learn from British democracy? Given that Britain’s prime ministers are often elected by a couple of hundred racist dementia patients from Kent (the surviving members of the Conservative party) on behalf of a handful of hedge fund billionaires and non-resident media moguls, my answer is clearly: ‘Nothing whatsoever’. As with everything - apart from pop music and bagels - Danes do democracy better. 

My first glimpse of the refreshingly grounded way in which things function here was seeing the Danish prime minister being totally ignored by the public during an election walkabout on Amagertorv. 

This was Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, back in the late Nineties. I was visiting for the first time with my then fiancé (now wife), who is Danish. “But shouldn’t we, like, heckle him, or ask for his autograph or something?” I asked. My fiancé frowned and pulled me away, as one might a rubber-necker from a car accident.

I’ve often thought back to Nyrup’s walkabout that day. The accessible, relatively low key nature of Danish politics it seemed to embody has stayed with me ever since. The crowd’s apathy towards Rasmussen was not to be confused with any apathy towards democracy of course, as Danish election turnouts of well over 80% attest (vs 67% in the last UK one). Danes take voting seriously as well as which, away from election time, the democratic system functions exceptionally well too. When a prime minister loses his or her head and arrests a spy chief, for instance, or orders the premature slaughter of millions of mink, various checks and balances swing into action and… eventually, we get a chance to vote again. 

Even better, your verdict is delivered within a month, so you can all go back to trying to book a padel court and watching dramas about hair curlers.

Not only that but, Danish politicians tend to agree on most things too. Middle ground is sought, consensus and coalition demanded, and usually achieved - around 80% of the time according to recent research. Do you realise how extraordinary that is? How beneficial it is for your economy, not to mention your emotional well being? It’s the kind of efficient legislature we in Britain can only dream of; as smooth running and efficient as a Swiss watch. If British democracy were a time piece, on the other hand, it would be an old station clock which stopped in 1952.

One reason for all this might be that the Danish education system is responsible for creating the best civil servants in the world. On global university ranking lists, Danish universities generally rank in the low 100s, which isn’t bad for a country of Denmark’s size and alcohol intake. But there is one subject in which, according to the 2022 Shanghai Ranking, Aarhus University is the world’s leader: its Political Science department is ranked No1. For the third year running.

Yet, still, I hear many complaints from Danes about the current crop of politicians, mostly concerning the way they behave towards each other - the accusations and name calling, the blame shifting, the selectivity, and the lies. I get it. I hear them too, especially at this point in the political cycle when they are scrambling to differentiate themselves, with roughly 50% of voters looking to switch parties this year. Hence all the blithe promises to shower us with nurses and tax cuts, promises which the politicians know they will never have to fulfil.

But here’s my problem. In Denmark I have 14 potential parties to choose from, spanning from the looney left to the rabid right. There are Ayn Rand liberals (economic flat-earthers, basically), convicted criminals (how avante garde!), marxists who dress like they have just come from doing some gardening, and somewhere, sitting alone in a remote village hall, virulent right wing Morten Messcherschmidt, weeping into his Grand Cru. There are even some eternally hopeful Christians, which is sweet, but can I find one political leader I would trust with my vote? I can not. I have examined them closely, and every one of them has a critical ‘ick’ factor.

An ‘ick’ factor is defined by the Guardian as “a point at which your initial attraction to a person flips into a feeling of disgust”. In relationship terms it can be the way your boyfriend licks his finger before turning a page, say, or how, in profile, your girlfriend bears a weird resemblance to Ernest Borgnine. That kind of thing.

In terms of Denmark’s politicians, the ick factors for me range from the things Søren Pape doesn’t say about discrimination against muslims (and he does seem extravagantly untrustworthy, even for a politician), to the way Jakob Elleman-Jensen always looks like he has just dented your paintwork with his car door in the car park but is totally denying it (that, and his party’s ostrich-like climate policies. And the ongoing fetish about headscarves - what do these people have against nuns?). 

I understand Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s Falstaffian appeal, but the man helped create the Trumpian monster, Støjberg, so he’s a no too. Meanwhile, I could imagine at least two of the other party leaders holding Mussolini’s coat while he bludgeon’s an opponent with his bare fists. Mai Villadsen seems to have the same relationship to NATO as I do to God (I don’t believe in him, but if I lost my car keys, or were Russia to invade, you can damn well bet I’d start praying), while Sofie Carsen Nielsen seems to have tied herself up in Kafka-esque knots.

So I took one of those online tests to see if that could help me find a political home: based on the parties’ previous voting records, the test concluded there were six which scored precisely 52% on the Michael-ometer, ranging from Frie Grønne to Liberal Alliance. I was none the wiser.

I can’t help but feel the choice might have been easier a decade or so ago. Over the years I’ve met many Danish politicians, including several prime ministers, in a professional context, in private, and in one case, on the dance-floor. Some, like Bertel Haarder and Magrethe Vestager, left a deep and positive impression of thoughtful, responsible, open-minded people. The kind you would vote for in a heartbeat. Others, like Helle Thorning Schmidt and the current environment minister whose name I can’t be bothered to look up, left me wondering how on earth they managed to convince anyone of their ability to run anything.

And then there is Mette Frederiksen with whom I have indeed shared a dancefloor. There is much to admire in the current PM: her communication throughout the COVID crisis was exemplary, and she is always convincing in interviews. Teflon coated. She seems to believe herself destined to decide over Denmark; I can imagine she was reorganising the maternity ward within minutes of being born. Nothing wrong with that. Tony Blair possessed the same messianic confidence, and it worked brilliantly. Right up until it didn’t. Good dancer too. Frederiksen, not Blair.

For this election she appears laser-focused on pleasuring Denmark’s g-spot: security and safety. I suspect it will prove highly effective election foreplay. So why wouldn’t I vote for her? I am actually not all that bothered by the mink stuff, or the selfies and social media nonsense (the kind of shit professional politicians have always had to do), but I do find the anti-immigrant rhetoric, the ostentatious absurdity of the Rwanda policy, and the self-harming demonisation of private enterprise a bit of a turn-off.

Ultimately whom I vote for is a minor issue, but the majority of the Danes I have spoken to over the past couple of weeks share my quandry. Perhaps this is why Lars Løkke finds himself surfing an unexpected wave: we think of him as an archetypal Dane despite all the evidence to the contrary (I’ve always thought that if he looked like Nikolaj Coster Waldau he wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular), and perhaps because of that no one is bothered by his various minor scandals. Or, you know, his record.

But ultimately I do sometimes wonder if the real problem is that there is too much democratic choice in this country. Do you realise that you have one member of parliament for every 32,400 Danes, compared to the UK, which has one for every 103,076? The French and Germans have even fewer MPs per capita. Seems excessive, doesn’t it? Not to mention expensive.

Ironically, the solution to this might lie with the least democratic of your institutions. A couple of weeks ago, Queen Margrethe made a few decisive cuts to her own excess family, and I wonder if the Danish people shouldn’t do likewise with their political family. 

So here’s my idea, as a newly-minted Danish citizen: less democracy. 

How about we get rid of, say, a few dozen members of parliament to create a slimmed down, focused, lean and agile Danish parliament, for the coming years of belt-tightening global turbulence.

That I’d vote for.

END