BRITAIN'S previous prime minister, Gordon Brown, was not always keen on meeting foreigners nor very good at hiding it. Though fascinated by America, a few other very large countries and the fine points of international economic governance, Mr Brown's diplomatic strategy—notably in Europe—mostly involved delivering lectures on British cleverness and leaving meetings early. On being asked to lobby European Union ambassadors, so one account of New Labour's demise records, an enraged Mr Brown shouted: “Why are you making me meet these fucking people?”

Thus the contrast was striking when David Cameron invited the prime ministers of eight Baltic and Nordic countries to a summit earlier this month. Sitting in his shirtsleeves and frowning with concentration, Mr Cameron spent hours quizzing Finns about female entrepreneurs and Swedes about selling music online, or patiently nodding as the prime minister of Iceland (population 319,000) praised fathers who take three months of paternity leave. The mood was self-consciously informal: the leaders were distinguished only by pale blue lapel pins as they pottered about the summit venue, a modish art gallery in east London. Humility was Mr Cameron's watchword. Nordic countries scored higher on international rankings for well-being, women in the workforce and children's quality of life, he repeatedly said. This gave Britain “pause for thought”.

What was Mr Cameron up to? Several things. He is keen on alliances, seeing Britain as a hub nation in a world of networks. The eight Baltic and Nordic governments are already united by everything from wariness of Russia to an interest in shared energy grids. Scattered across Europe's northern periphery, they know there is no point waiting for the world to come to them: hence their obsession with free trade, competitiveness and distance-shrinking digital technology. Some are voices for open markets and budget discipline in the European Union, others for Atlanticism in NATO; many are both. At its simplest, Mr Cameron sees an interest in befriending their gang.

But beyond that, Mr Cameron—like other British politicians before him—is sincerely curious about the Nordic nations, home to what one senior figure calls “brilliant ideas working well”. Enthusiasm for countries such as Sweden used to be a preserve of the left, who swooned about a northern New Jerusalem in which contented, gender-sensitive citizens traded high taxes for gleaming (if bossy) public services: a nanny state with beach cottages and Volvos for all.

Nordic voters remain keen on the state, thanks to what Sweden's centre-right prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, calls a centuries-old conviction that “the state should be good, is not being controlled from behind, is not corrupt and can be a partner for growth.” But—crucially for Mr Cameron and his team—following a series of financial crises, Nordic voters have trusted centre-right governments to save states from ruin by means of budget rigour and market-based reforms, from profit-making free schools to tough welfare-to-work rules.

Mr Reinfeldt won office in 2006 (and re-election in 2010) by moving his Moderate party to the centre, vowing to overhaul but not dismantle the state. He declared that soft-hearted welfare rules had condemned citizens to “social exclusion”, paying some 20% of the working-age population to sit at home on benefits or subsidies. Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, has spent much time talking to his brilliant (if irritatingly pony-tailed) Swedish counterpart, Anders Borg, about Sweden's experience slashing a big budget deficit in the mid-1990s. The main lessons from Mr Borg: cut quickly; dare to cut the biggest budgets such as social benefits and pensions; ensure the rich bear more of the burden; reform welfare to make work pay and brace yourself for a backlash. Mr Osborne is learning this last lesson already, vowing he would not be “blown off course” by a surprise contraction of the British economy, announced on January 25th.

Mr Cameron paid a study visit to Sweden in 2007, while his policy guru Steve Hilton (the driving force behind the London summit) grew close to Per Schlingmann, ideas man to Mr Reinfeldt. The friendship between the two party leaders—similar in age and each cultivating the image of a moderate, bourgeois family man—is genuine, though it has at times teetered on the brink of blokier-than-thou competition. While in opposition, Mr Cameron invited the Swede to his house for supper. I bicycle home, so may be late, he warned Mr Reinfeldt. Great, replied the Swedish prime minister, I'll grab a pint at a pub near your house.

Only nanny can set you free

Yet Scandinavians still make some Tory teeth grind. It is not so much their high taxes. As Mr Cameron's circle notes ruefully, British taxes are not so far off Nordic levels. But when it comes to values—especially family values—the gap is wide. A new paper, “The Nordic Way”, submitted by Nordic governments to this week's World Economic Forum at Davos, hails Nordic citizens as “secular-rational” individualists, liberated by the state from any obligation to support elderly parents and given the freedom to work by cheap day care for all (in Sweden, more than 80% of two-year-olds attend preschool, often for six hours a day). Mr Reinfeldt himself suggests that women do not just help the economy by working, they gain autonomy from men, arguing: “At the end of the day, you don't know if your marriage will last.”

Mr Cameron is clear-eyed about how far he can take such ideas in Britain. His quest is for growth and jobs, and making public finances sustainable. A clutch of titchy but ingenious neighbours have some suggestions. It is a mark of this prime minister's self-assurance that he is happy to listen and take notes.





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