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MAGDALENA ANDERSSON

‘Get the meatballs ready’: Swedish PM congratulates wrong Liz Truss

Sweden's prime minister was so eager to congratulate Liz Truss on becoming the UK's third woman prime minister on Monday, that her official Twitter account ended up messaging the wrong person.

Published: 6 September 2022 11:26 CEST
'Get the meatballs ready': Swedish PM congratulates wrong Liz Truss
Liz Truss arrives at Conservative Central Office in Westminster after winning the Conservative Party leadership contest in London, Monday, Sept. 5, 2022. Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Moments after Truss was voted in as Conservative party leader, and as a result the UK’s next prime minister, Sweden’s prime minister Magdalena Andersson tweeted a message of congratulations to the @liztruss Twitter handle. 

“Congratulations to @liztruss, as she assumes the role of Prime Minister of the UK. Sweden and UK will continue our deep and comprehensive cooperation. It is important for our citizens, economies and security,” she wrote.

Unfortunately for Andersson, or more likely her hapless social media manager, this account is run by a certain Liz Trussell rather than the new Prime Minister Liz Truss, who immediately made fun of the situation. 

“Looking forward to visit soon! Get the meatballs ready,” Trussell tweeted. 

Andersson’s account corrected the mistake after 27 minutes, tweeting to the correct @trussliz account. 

In the defence of Sweden’s PM, she was far from the only person to make the error, with the UK’s Green Party MP Caroline Lucas among the many who tweeted to Trussell.

Trussell spent the evening making the most of the situation, who Sky presenter Sophy Ridge joked was “living her best life” replying to the wrongly sent tweets. 

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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