Denmark

For years the Nordic model has stood out as a beacon of universal welfare provision. But if you want evidence of how the global financial crisis has ripped up the political rulebook then look no further than Denmark, the country with the highest tax burden in the world and one that’s long prided itself on a highly developed system of welfare for all. Its current Social Democrat-led Government has cut welfare payments, raised the retirement age and started to means test college and university students for study grants. And, as of this year, they’ve cut access to child support for richer households. According to Danish Finance Minister Bjarne Corydon, this reflects ‘a continuing debate of priorities’. And it’s not just taking place in Denmark.

Of all the statistics generated by the Holocaust, perhaps some of the most disturbing in the questions they give rise to are the following. Of the Jews in Hungary, the Netherlands, Greece, Latvia and Poland, between 70 and 90 per cent died, while the corresponding figures for Estonia, Belgium Norway and Romania were between 40 and 50. In France and Italy somewhere around 20 per cent perished. In both Bulgaria and Denmark, however, just one. Bo Lidegaard’s Countrymen is the story of how Denmark to a great extent saved its  Jewish population from the labour and extermination camps, but it inevitably raises issues of equal relevance to the rest of Europe.

Firoozeh Bazrafkan is frightened of nothing. Five foot tall, 31 years old, and so thin you think a puff of wind could blow her away, she still has the courage to be a truly radical artist and challenge those who might hurt her. She fights for women’s rights and intellectual freedom, and her background means her fight has to be directed against radical Islam. As a Danish citizen, she saw journalists go into hiding and mobs attack her country’s embassies just because Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of Muhammad that were so tame you could hardly call them ‘satirical’. Bazrafkan is also the daughter of an Iranian family, and the Islamic Republic’s subjugation of women revolts her.

A scientific study has revealed that the faces of Lego characters are no longer so mindlessly happy as they once were. This is an important thing to know. ‘Put the cancer cure stuff on hold for a while, will you - I’m deeply interested in the facial expressions of plastic toys.’ Anyway, once upon a time Lego men and women had the sort of smug, deluded, grins that one immediately associates with the gullible Danes who manufacture them. Denmark regularly tops the table of the countries with the most stupidly self-satisfied citizenry, a consequence of them stuffing themselves with pastries and bien pensant opinions day in and out.

Borgen - the title refers to the Danish equivalent of Holyrood or Westminster - has been terrifically popular amongst those people interested in sub-titled political dramas from Denmark. I fancy that viewers in England have simply enjoyed the programme for what it is: a well-made but impossibly smug piece of "progressive" political propaganda. In Scotland, however, it has been seen as something different: a glimpse of the future. Or, at any rate, one future. In one sense this is reasonable. Even if it is only a TV show, one can see why Scots - and nationalists especially - should be thrilled by a drama showing how the ineffably right-on leader of a small northern European nation can make a mark upon the world. No wonder Nicola Sturgeon is on record expressing her admiration for Borgen.