THE PM KEEP BLAMING THE FOREIGN MINISTRY

It's good to see the focus increasingly fall on the Swedish PM, Göran Persson, for our government's handling of the Tsunami disaster. Svenska Dagbladet's chief political editor seems to take the same view as I've done earlier, in his blog today.

PJ Anders Linder writes that (in my translation): "It's possible that some telefaxes that should have been sent on to the PM wasn't during Boxing day 2004. But the ultimate resposibility for this lies with the Prime Minister! Also: we live in the 21st century so there are more sources for information than telefaxes from civil servants."

Exactly. And we do know that the PM watched Sky News during the morning of that day, so he was indeed aware of that a major disaster had happened. It's true he didn't know the extent of it, but surely he knew enough to react.

And as the head of the government he has appointed all his ministers, and is in charge for how his ministries conduct their work. So hearing him putting the blame for his own lack of leadership on single individuals within the Foreign Ministry is just plain sad. As Mr Linder writes: "Sweden deserves a better Prime Minister".

See my post from January 4 for some of my thoughts on how the PM has acted.

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