Social Democrats & We choose Welfare....

Just saw the new political posters out for the Social Democrat party here in Denmark.

The slogan translates as "We choose Welfare". This made me laugh, since Denmark already "chose welfare" sometime in the 1970s, as far I can tell. With half the country on some kind of handout, and the other half paying the most horrendously high taxes ever seen, what this country needs is a lot less welfare and maybe a lot more people getting a kick up the backside.

Given the new money-making attitude among younger Danes, I suspect they are on a loser with this election strategy. Thank god.

In case you're not aware of who the leader of this party is, it's someone called Helle Thorning Schmidt, who is married to Stephen Kinnock, son of Neil Kinnock. The Labour PM who held a celebratory winning party after the 1993 general election in the UK, except it then turned out he hadn't won after all...whoops.

Mr Kinnock, her husband has already made his own decision on the Danish welfare system by choosing to live outside Denmark and visit his wife, I would guess just enough to be inside the 180 days non-resident rule. What a great example of the true socialist mantra "...do as I say, not as I do..." I wonder how their finances are arranged? My guess would be he probably has all their savings held abroad in his name. I know I would if I was them. Ah the joys of being a politician trying to spend other people's money.

Of course, this is only likely conjecture on my part. If they read this and want to correct me then I'm happy to publish it on my blog.

Site Relaunch

Okay, maybe not quite. But I've had a bit of a rejig of my three main Danish sites and the results can be seen at :-

http://www.ingenmoms.dk
http://www.sparmoms.dk
http://www.itcontractor.dk

Would appreciate some feedback on the results.

Buying Domain Names

I've been buying quite a few domain names recently. In the main this is to protect long term business interests.

Moving to Denmark has also meant nabbing some .dk versions too.

I'd highly recommend this lot as selling the cheapest domain names going - excellent prices and you can even pay in a number of different currencies, including Dkr by bank transfer...

Schooling in Denmark

We deliberately timed our move from Britain to Denmark just before our daughter was due to start school in the UK, simply because our experience is that the British schools are hammering on the kids.

In Britain there are even state school league tables and this creates intense competition for places at the "best" schools and for schools to concentrate on grading the children from the start. My Dad worked in a junior school and it was common knowledge that the teachers of kids this age hated doing it. Along with that, my nephew in the UK is 5 and after being off ill in his first year his mother even got a letter complaining that his attendance was below 95%!

The downside of being in Denmark is moving somewhere else where the education system requires your kids to start younger because your kids are, temporarily at least, well behind.

I'd suggest anyone coming to Denmark considers sending their children to a private school. Teachers are more motivated and our daughter is so much happier since she switched...even doing a letter a day instead of one a week (!). Sounds flash, but the state subsidises it and we only pay 550 krone a month, and with the SFO in, it actually works out cheaper than the state school! You can read about it here .

By the way, one of the most hilarious books I've ever read on the reality of the modern British education system is It's Your Time You're Wasting by a teacher...anonymously!

Lottery Obsessions

I have been thinking about this for quite a while, and have you noticed how the lottery is very popular in Denmark? Everyone goes on about winning the lottery all the time.

I reckon it's a socialist thing, with a life of high taxes, eternal debt and thus lifetime slavery, the lottery is advertised as your ticket out. Working hard will never get you anywhere, since most of the extra you earn disappears with the higher tax rates.

Britain's introduction of the lottery about 12 years ago coincided with the end of Thatcherism and a beginning of the decline into higher taxes and more socialism (child tax credits, IR35, etc.)

All very reminiscent of the film "The Island". In case you haven't seen it, all these people live in a complex, convinced that the world outside is polluted by a major nuclear war. There is a lottery - and the winner gets to go and live on an unspoilt desert island. In reality they die...hmmm....