JUDGING by its pristine streets, healthy-looking people and chic boutiques, Oslo seems confidently prosperous. Anti-poverty campaigners, who marched backwards round the parliament building on August 23rd to make their point, say this is just a façade. But they and other Norwegian left-wingers face many more laps before they get the free school meals and dental treatment, more social housing and higher welfare payments they demand. Despite a brief recovery for the centre-left government earlier this month the polls point firmly to defeat for the prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, in elections on September 9th. His likely successor will be Erna Solberg, whose Conservative Party favours tax cuts and more spending on infrastructure and education as opposed to extending the welfare state.Economic growth was at 2.6% year-on-year in the second quarter and unemployment at just 3.4%, while the current-account surplus is huge: nearly 14% of GDP. Given that, Mr Stoltenberg’s looming defeat suggests ingratitude. In the wake of Anders Behring Breivik’s terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utoya in 2011, the prime minister’s cool-headed but sympathetic style earned him an approval rating of over 90%. But criticism has since grown, partly about bungled security then, but also over a mismanaged hospital-reform plan and slow progress in infrastructure projects. His biggest problem, however, is that…
The Economist: Europe