Today’s big topic: The explusion of a veteran member of Venstre’s parliamentary group
After 15 years in Parliament for Venstre, Preben Bang Henriksen attended his last caucus meeting with the party on Tuesday. At the meeting, he was expelled.
What’s happening?
The crush of reporters was such that security at Christiansborg had to fetch extra barrier tape for the hallway outside the caucus meeting room.
Everyone was there because Venstre leader Troels Lund Poulsen won backing from the party’s executive committee over the weekend, to make clear that, going forward, Venstre will no longer accept a parliamentary group that does not vote as one and refuses to fall in line with the party line.
Venstre’s longtime justice spokesperson Preben Bang Henriksen became the first member to feel the consequences, as he refused to hand over his vote to a majority in the parliamentary group.
»You’d have to be both deaf and blind not to understand which way the wind is blowing«, as Preben Bang Henriksen himself said.
At the caucus meeting itself, the mood was reportedly heavy, but another seasoned Venstre veteran, Anni Matthiesen, according to Politiken’s information, initiated applause for Preben Bang Henriksen. A final salute to a now former party colleague.
Why it matters!
The expulsion of Preben Bang Henriksen was a necessity for the Venstre leadership in light of the party’s current crisis. Not only did they have their worst ever result at a parliamentary election in March, their polling numbers have since plummeted even further. The direction of the party has been up for debate, most notably shown by the diverging votes on the fertilizer law, which was passed in Parliament in September.
The expulsion of Preben Bang seems to have been deemed a necessary mean for Troels Lund Poulsen and the Venstre leadership’s end of bringing the party out of the current crisis as a unified party. The expulsion is not a quick fix, and it is unlikely to turn the tide for Venstre in the polls, but it is a way of setting a clear direction and signalling a real intent to follow it.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
In other news
–Hyped documentary sends ticket sales through the roof at Danish cinemas
When ticket sales for the documentary ’You Can See Everything’ opened at 10 a.m. Tuesday in 68 cinemas across Denmark, something close to unprecedented happened in Danish movie history. Within just a few hours, the first cinemas were already reporting sold-out screenings for the premiere on Nov. 19. This despite the film being distributed to a record number of theaters for a documentary of its kind.
–Denmark’s first residual waste sorting facility is now being put into use
Denmark has unveiled its first sorting facility for residual waste. It marks a new chapter in efforts to make better use of the resources found in waste, and over time it could help make waste sorting more efficient – and, hopefully, simpler for residents. ARC sees the facility as a safety net that complements household sorting and captures even more usable materials before residual waste ends up being incinerated. By 2027, the facility is expected to separate between 8,500 and 14,000 tons of recyclable materials, including plastic, metal, paper, cardboard, and food and beverage cartons.
– Denmark’s new media outlet went live yesterday. It is called Y, and most of its content will be produced with artificial intelligence.
. Project Y has previously received 3.2 million kroner in support from the innovation fund, which was used to develop the company’s own production system. Culture Minister Zenia Stampe (Radikale Venstre) has signaled that media outlets like Y should no longer receive public media support, if the government has its way. If you ask Michael Dyrby, who is spearheading Y, the launch is rather an example of the media house of the future
The media company Y, which has about 15 editorial staff members and developers, has moved into a former industrial space in the Østerbro district of Copenhagen. According to Michael Dyrby, the company’s first venture, the free news outlet Y, is meant to deliver journalism from a center-right perspective.
Talk of town: New joint Nordic bulwark against Big Tech is hailed by leading American scholars
Shoshana Zuboff distilled years of research into the best seller ’The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.’
Today, nearly three in 10 young people between 15 and 19 spend more than six hours a day on private screen use, according to new figures from Statistics Denmark.
In the »Marienborg Manifest,«, published yesterday, eight Nordic heads of state and government are now breaking with a naivete that for years has shaped political decision-making, and they are signaling a showdown with the tech giants and their colonization of children’s and young people’s lives and attention.
»We are not going to stop technological development. But for far too long, we have naively focused on its positive effects – especially when it comes to our children. That ends now. We must ensure that the digital world serves the interests of our children – not the other way around,« the manifest says.
Politiken presented the manifest to Shoshana Zuboff, and in an email response she called the document from the Nordic leaders »the marking of a historic turning point«.
First, she referred to the following passage, which she wrote in 2018:
»We’ve used our children as canaries in the coal mine, sending them alone into the dark new world of a human hive owned and operated by the rising hegemon, surveillance capitalism, as it strips them of their privacy, subjects them to hidden algorithmic methods of behavioral control, and enforces their dependency on the unceasing judgement of the crowd«.
Zuboff, a professor emerita at Harvard Business School, then added:
»The results were already evident then: addiction, dependency, depression, anxiety. self-doubt, self-harm, loneliness, isolation, diminished cognitive skills, self-objectification... Our children have suffered because of our own neglect and failure to grasp the nature of the world that surveillance capitalism made for us«, Zuboff writes, commenting specifically on the joint declaration by the Nordic heads of government:
»Today the Marienborg Manifest rejects that dystopia. It declares an historic turning point in the epic battle between the tech giants and the sacred values of our once thriving democracies. Today we take back our children, and tomorrow we insist on taking back our societies. We stand together in the name of the human future for which all humanity yearns.
Read the full article here.
This newsletter features stories originally published in Danish. AI was used to shorten and translate the articles into English, after which a member of the editorial staff reviewed and refined the content.