If you are a political geek and/or love well-made Danish TV drama and haven’t watched Borgen then 1) you are quite mad and 2) you should resolve to get into it as soon as possible. It’s wonderful.
+++Spoiler alert+++
In the second series, the third party in the coalition is giving the PM some trouble. The PM is trying to build a broad cross-party consensus on the “reform package” but the Greens want the reforms to be greener faster. The Greens start to lose traction when a story “emerges” in the media about the Green leader having a gas-guzzling old Cadillac. He tells the media that he keeps it mostly in his garage and only drives a few hundred kilometres a year. The journos find out that he’s been telling porkies and that he uses it as his main car. Eventually he has to resign in embarrassment.
The Danes obviously have a lower threshold for rank hypocrisy.
As I recall the Green leader resigned, not because of the hypocrisy, but because of the endless personal and intrusive press coverage occasioned by the revelation. The hypocrisy of the prime minister in turning the press loose on the Green leader in the (later) context of press comment/coverage of her daughter’s illness was not AFAIAA dealt with. On the contrary, we were expected to sympathise fully with her in her dilemma as she steered between her time-conflicted duties to family and country.
Generally though Borgen was excellent although – a personal take – the right-on politics of the Danish coalition grated at times. Occasionally It was almost like watching a BBC effort where parts of the BBC Narrative (eg “action on climate change – now”, “no privatisation of the NHS”, “the joy of multi-culti”) were slipped in to keep our noses to the grindstone of political correctness.
Good point about the hypocrisy of the media stories. As for the “right-on” stance might that be a reflection of the Danish centre-ground? Also, there was an episode where they studied the death of the industrial working class – a subject that would be far too “right wing” for a British drama whether privately or publicly funded…