The weekly gossip magazine Hymy recently wrote about a young woman who says that she had received 200 mobile phone text messages from Kanerva. The woman has been described in the tabloid press as an "erotic dancer". Kanerva has denied the claims.
Well, today he actually denied that he had denied it - which was probably a wise move. With age indeed comes wisdom, and Ilkka Kanerva is already 60 years young.
Seriously, my gentle readers, there are some things you should know and not forget. I keep it short and simple, and just list them below.
Thing 1: Ilkka Kanerva is silly and funny, i.e. factually incompetent but socially competent. Most of the people who meet him like him, and the Ministry's senior level civil servants certainly even more so, for in Ilkka they have a boss whose level of substance allows them to have as much influence over policies as they possibly can legally have in Finland.
Thing 2: Ilkka Kanerva is a spineless opportunist. His party is right of centre, but in the 70s and 80s Ilkka himself was among Finland's greatest friends of communism. When there were rumours and gossips about who likes whom and who wants what in Finnish politics, Ilkka the informer was the first to pass them on to Soviet diplomats.
Thing 3: Ilkka Kanerva is the archetype of those who in Finnish lingo are known as broilers - a natural-born youth politician who simply and painlessly evolved into an adult politician. He studied politics in university, was active in student politics and has never held a job other than that of a politician.
Thing 4: Ilkka Kanerva had an exact-fooking-ly same sort of text message diarrhea less than three years ago. Had he within his head something that could be possibly identified as a human brain, he would have learnt his lesson and approached women belonging to that certain trade solely through his imagination and carpal aide, the ever-faithful Federica, but hell no - instead he concluded that this "finnish Glamour model" could keep all those 200 SMS beans graciously unspilled and thus prove worth the gamble. Which makes at least this blogger think that there must be only some dark, dark matter inside Ilkka Kanerva's Turkudweller's skull.
That's all, folks.
7 comments:
You know his birthday celebrations were covered live on TV? Apparently he's very popular. Fuck knows why.
Although I am quite surprised that all the editors who last week were righteously banging on about Matti's 'privacy' are now going hell for leather on this one.
Probably the hardest part of following your motherland's news via internet indeed is that you can't really get an idea of editorial stances, but I've been pleased that uusisuomi.fi (my primary source for news from Finland nowadays - at least now that the Lamb is on its rare break) has taken a strong stand against both Matti and Ilkka. Their online reincarnation is just a young newspaper, but I must say that so far I've been quite impressed by their work.
As I said earlier, Ilkka is a social talent - he just happens to come across very smooth and likable. Ilkka the womaniser is part of his brand and he has had these sort of 'scandals' here and there and now and then; to most people this side has been just a kind of boys-will-be-boys thing. Heh heh, just kidding, no harm done and blah blah blah - certainly more favourable a stigma than to be remembered as a pathologically opportunistic Soviet errand boy.
What should make it different this time, is his post. A Foreign Minister shouldn't get away with that sort of behaviour, and if he will I won't be happy.
I dunno, I think these job offers seem quite sleazy. He should really be radioactive at this point, but I can't see how he gets away with that 'voters will judge me' thing. Directly elected foreign ministers would be an interesting innovation.
It is quite interesting how (I suspect) the career politicians and soviet errand boys stick together at times like these. There was something in the paper about Tanja Saarela having to publicly apologise when she was a minister for sitting on the arm of Aleksi Valavuori's chair in a nightclub. Then there's the whole Jääteenmäki affair.
Here are some leaders available on t'internet:
The Guardian
The Times (scroll down to 'leading articles')
The Telegraph (scroll down to 'leader')
The Daily Mail
Source of Daily Mail leader articles (sorry)
Voice of The Mirror
The Sun Says
Daily Express
Not worth bothering with the regional press, they are not nearly as influential as their Finnish equivalents.
He's an embarrasment. He's the last Finnish politician I'd have sent out into the world to represent the country. I saw him on television the other day at a press conference with the UK foreign minister, and he was clearly pre-occupied with his SMS-scandal and had little to no clue with what he was meant to be talking about.
I find it hard to believe he will get to the end of this government's term still in post. With his track record, it's only a matter of sooner or later that he comes unstuck again - and then Katainen will have to give him the shove.
Ilkka Kanerva is known to say whetever he thinks will please the audience. One of the gaffes by him was the still unfulfilled promise on the annual tax on automobiles. When this tax was imposed for the first time Ilkka Kanerva said - very earnastly - that "it is just a loan". He actually promised in front of TV cameras that this tax will be paid back.
Just do not hold Your breath waiting.
Hi! Tell me the kind of underwear youre wearing right now?. Please?
Im not homosexual.
And today Kanerva had to resign.
Post a Comment