WILL this weekend mark the end of the Swedish dream?

Astonishing as it seems, it is just possible that on Sunday Swedes will throw out the centre-left Social Democrats who have governed them for all but nine of the past 74 years.

More than that, the party has been the living symbol of the dream of a “European social model”: capitalism, but with edges softened by a welfare state of apparently endless generosity. For many on the Left of European politics, Sweden has often seemed the most perfect way of organising a society that could be imagined, given a bit of affluence.

But whether the centre-right alliance wins on Sunday or not, there are plenty of signs that the dream has darkened. It is costing too much, and immigration is straining the unspoken contract under which Swedes were happy to pay the Government for what they were confident they would later receive.

The young challenger who threatens to topple Göran Persson from his ten-year premiership is Fredrik Reinfeldt, who has been compared with David Cameron for his success in stitching together a coalition from the demoralised and fractured opposition on the Right.

At 41, he would be Sweden’s youngest prime minister. But he has been less coy than Cameron about campaigning for lower taxes, as well as for cutting unemployment benefits and demanding results from schools and healthcare.

He may have struck a chord. Swedes are fed up with their high tax rates — and loathe the property tax of about 1 per cent of the value of a typical house.

They are suspicious of government claims that Sweden has one of Europe’s lowest unemployment rates, at about 4.5 per cent.

But Sweden’s benefit programmes have allowed its Government to become a world champion at presenting the figures to flatter itself.

Some analysts put unemploymen at between 15 per cent and 20 per cent, if all those on sick leave and other schemes are counted.

Eurostat, the EU agency, puts youth unemployment at more than 25 per cent. The unions, fervent supporters of the Social Democrats, have resisted changes that would make it easier for employers to hire part-time or temporary workers.

Swedes feel, with justice, that their country has never really recovered from its horrible 1990s recession. That shook confidence that their Government had fashioned the perfect model to which the rest of Europe aspired. Three years ago they rebuffed Persson in voting “no” to joining the euro.

Immigration has made these worries worse. A generation ago Sweden was an astonishingly homogeneous country, at least to a visitor’s eyes, although regional loyalties ran deep. But the sense of being part of a shared social project appeared to come easily.

Now a tenth of Sweden’s nine million people were born abroad. It is finding it no easier than other European countries to integrate its Muslim immigrants. They are finding it particularly hard to get jobs.

If Persson survives he will have to govern an increasingly surly and sceptical country.

SWEDISH MODEL

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