For the greater part of Sunday 9th December I reflected and then made notes on my experience of child care and protection during the years 1962 to 1971 some for publication and others over which I am still debating the merit of circulated in private or to become part of the 101 project and sealed for 100 years or more. With going to see an Imax film at the Metro centre tomorrow as well as investigating the purchase of a new suit I have decided to leave decisions until later in the week and concentrating on bringing up to date my writing and viewing experience of Borgen, the brilliant Danish series on coalition government and politics together with the impact of the political public life on relationships with partners and children.
Because of the unintended break between writing about the first and seconds seasons up to episode 18 of 20, it is appropriate to recap on the main characters and storyline.
Denmark has its first woman prime Minister leading a significantly minority party but which had gained seats dramatically at the General Election and forged a coalition with the Labour Party and progressive parties on the left, and which led to the replacement of the Labour Leader who concentrate on his media involvements using his tabloid newspaper in a crusade against the Prime Minister, Birgitte Nyborg who he sees as destroying his political career, although in fact it was of his own making after being fed damaging personal information by the media director of the Prime Minister, which he had discovered when rescuing a former partner, a Public Service Broadcasting TV station news front women from a situation where she woken to find her lover, a married man with children and also gofer for the former Prime Minister dead from a heart condition. Birgitte had refused to use the discovered information found when Kasper had stayed in the flat after Katrine had left to removed all traces of her presence before alerting the authorities.
The series is as much about the roles and relationships of the media Director, Kasper, and TV journalist and front woman. Katrine. She appears to come from a comfortable middle class home with good relationships with her family. Her previous relationship with Kasper broke up because there was a significant part of his inner self he was unable and to some extent unwilling to share.
The death of her lover who had announced his intention to divorce his wife and live with her was very difficult to bear but eventually as the series progressed she commenced a physical relationship with a fitness coach. Kasper is jealous but also recognises there is a gulf in intellectual and political and social interest between the two which he draws attention and ultimately leads to man involve walking out of the relationship appreciating that apart from the sexual attraction there as nothing binding the two together.
Kasper in the other had is haunted by what happened to him as a twelve year boy and pretends to his current girl friend as he has to Katrine that his mother died when he was a boy and father lives in the South of France too busy and with a very different life for them to get together. It is only midway during the second season that we learn the facts which are hinted at then slowly unravelled, that his father and three drinking and card playing male friends had sexually abused the boy until he had taken a hunting knife and severely wounded the father, but who had survived and with the friends had been convicted and imprisoned. Kasper refused further contact and with his mother who had conveniently been away when the criminal assaults took place and who provided a home for her husband on his release from prison
The past comes crashing back when his mother calls to announce the death of her husband and he cannot cope with the burial on her own. He takes over provides the minimum and attends the cremation on his own but joined by Katrine who he eventually tells what happened, after his mother is admitted into care with dementia and on selling up the family home, the agent gives Kasper a box with a scrap book and video tapes of the trial and publicity. They are both on their own but commence to live together after he gives the box to Katrine and understands.
The professional lives of the two also as its ups and downs. Birgitte sacks Kasper for taking the discovered information to another political leader, but re-engages when his replacement, an academic, starts to put his own spin on issues. Kasper also has a time when he believes she will sack him after he becomes aggressively angry with a right wing leader over his attempted to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 14, an issue, the raising of the age with which I with others was involved and believed we had succeeded when the Children’s and young persons Act was passed in 1969, only for this section not to be implemented by the Conservative government of 1970.
Katrine also storms out of her TV station job takes a job with her predecessor working for the newspaper run by the former Labour Leader. When they discover a plot to oust the successor party leader, they again revel and her former boss finds herself unemployable, having a drinking problem as well as her ethical standards while Katrine takes work where she can in hosting a daytime TV show. Eventually she is taken back in a temporary basis while her replacement is on pregnancy leave and she insists on her former boss also returning as a part time assistant. By the end of the second season they have achieved such good work that they are offered permanent positions although the head of the news division makes the point that she should put having children on hold given the problems the station has recently encountered. This she says is unlikely, after during the two remaining episodes of the series when they are embarking on taking n expensive new apartment Kasper makes it plain without discussion that they are not having children and they are at the point of breaking up again. He goes to see his mother and changes from the years of resentment and smouldering anger to empathy and forgiveness on seeing the state in which she is now in. At the point her boss is offering the appointment on conditions, Kasper is changing his mind, brings flowers to the officer and tells her she need not take the contraception pill. This is point when both could be said to have reach the best of times in their relationship and working experience.
During the first season we have witnessed the growth if Birgitte in to someone amazed at finding herself the Prime Minister, struggling to cope with challenges of lading a coalition and most of all with the impact on her husband and two children. It not just that she is required to be on duty 24/7 but her position impacts on the ambitions and interests of her husband who begins the series as a university lecturer. First he is required to sell off shares in a firm specialising in wind turbines and then to resign soon after accepting the appointment of a CEO with an International firm because in the first the government is about to conclude a contract worth millions supplying Turbines to another government, but who starts to try and get out the deal when Birgitte refuses to hand over a dissident. Then it is discovered the firm is involved in a small part of a big contract involving new fighter planes where the Minister and Military are found to have accepted very expensive hospitality and in one instance a very expensive gift.
However his main difficulty is accepting her more confident and assertive role as her confidence and assertiveness develops in her political role and which is show by her power dressing and manner and this demonstrated by her decision to suggest she will make herself available for se twice a week, something where events sometimes intrude and where she offers for him to have discreet sexual relationships if that is the way for them to remain husband and wife something she wants. They separate and eventually divorces something she resists although for the sake if her two children she accepts his new partner a paediatrician his two children immediately take to, especially the youngest boy.
What both parents fail to appreciate is the impact of the divorce and the absences of Birgitte is having on the daughter as she moves into adolescence. The girl starts to have severe anxiety attacks, withdrawal and depression which comes to a head when after commencing treatment with medication she starts stops take taking the anti depressants, the happy pills. The second and more serious breakdown occurs just as the Prime Minister is gaining her greatest political and media success brokering a peace between warring sides in an African state where the Christian side is supported by the USA and the Muslim by China and where the revenue from oil is a major factor with a leading Danish industrialist having significant interests.
The daughter is rushed to hospital where the consultant explains that she has become very ill, although girls not taking the medication is common as a way of demonstrating that they still have some control over themselves. He recommends a significant change the parents care of their daughter and her placement in a special private unit because of the 50 week waiting list for national health service psychiatric treatment. This poses a major problem for the Prime Minister as her health reforms involve scaling back on the tax subsidy to private health care. The cost of eh treatment without health insurance is a major issue and the decision is taken not to use her former husband’s health insurance because of the political fall out.
Birgitte asks Kasper to help with limiting media interest but the story quickly breaks as the son tells friends at school, one of who parents sells the story to the paper of the former Labour Leader. Worse is to follow when a photographer enters the grounds and takes pictures just when the girl begins to settle and participate in the treatment regime,
At first the daughter panics at the idea of going to establishment and then is very cautious until the unit head convinces that she understands how the girl feels based on the experiences of the others who have abd are being treated. Th daughter then resists going to group therapy but she also begins to attend and to participate In addition to basic structure and approach makes friends with another girl suggesting a very close relationship as the season ends,. She is also able to communicate with Kasper who went through a similar experience as a child,
The presence of media quickly disrupts the treatment programme for everyone and faced with having to remove their daughter Birgitte takes the unprecedented action of taking leave and asking the leader of the Labour Party to take over in her absence. The daughter make great progresses over a period of weeks to an extent that she is ready to begin the process of returning home, first by only attending during the day time. Such is her progress that at one point she gives thanks to Kasper for his understanding with a peck on the cheek as she goes off with her best friend.
Birgitte who has never been happy with the behaviour of her husband accuses him of abandoning her too quickly and not making the effort to stay. He ends the relationship with his new partner but this does not lead to the two getting together but enables him to devote the time required to sharing the care of the their children. Birgitte has had a one night stand with a chauffer who is replaced. She is full of guilt about what has happened to her daughter, especially when the girl reveals she had talked about her feelings of letting her mother down. The unit reminds that the roles of mother and work place greater demands and the reality as workaholics is that sometimes he work just does not take precedence but it is a necessary escape from the demands and realities of parenthood. She claims that Birgitte is not responsible for what has happened to the girl, about the only point in the entire series with which I have conflict. It true that much of the behaviour and physical life of children is the product of their physical and mental structure but this is inherited from parents an while direct carers, teachers and other will have their impact it is the parental relationships, or substitute parental relationships or the lack of them that has a major bearing on how the child develops and over their subsequent lives.
As the daughter heals she needs the attention of her mother less and this is the opportunity for Birgitte to return to political life as speculation about the future amounts and the opposition begin to steal the political initiative. From the outset Birgitte has relied on an older political friend from within her Party who becomes her Minister of Finance, but she is forced to stand him down under pressure from Coalition members as they demand concession for keeping the coalition going. He also reacts when she attempts to make him a commissioner in the EEC an when he agrees he immediate has another attack on his health something which he had kept previously secret from her and his colleagues.
As the second season ends they are back as friends and party political colleagues and he is impressed when she seizes the initiative after her major reform bill is passed by a narrow majority 82 to 80. She goes to see the queen and now she is calling a general election, not to decide if a woman should be Prime Minister but if the policies of her party and coalition have majority support. During the leave period the opposition and others had made much of difficulties of being a politician, wife and parent. The seasons therefore ends optimistically and we the viewers make the assumption that he will be returned and indeed I had assumed that the series had end at this point until learning of a third series.
The first two episodes of the third and final season of the Danish political Drama Borgen commenced on BBC Channel Four Saturday evening 13th November 2013
The Prime Minister’s daughter and son appeared much and son appear that much older suggesting there was a gap in production between seasons two and three and this is confirmed with a gap of two years since the General Election. The next revelation is that not only did the coalition lose the election but her own party was smashed to below the number of seat from the election before their rise to power and office.
The head of her Party. the Moderates is Kruse th man she insisted become the European Commissioner after his double dealing nearly finished of her close friend Bent he had disappeared from the series in episode 4 of the second season.
When the season opens she has become a Board member if not the chairman of an International company and is visiting developments in Asia. She is also in a relationship at a distance with the company CEO. She and the children are renting a very expensive upmarket apartment and the husband comments that his son bedroom has th space of the previous kitchen and living area.
Returning th Denmark she see Kruse announce on Katrine’s TV news show that he is prepared to talk to the Government about Draconian immigration and repatriation laws and this she makes up her mind to return to politics and Ministerial level if possible, although she appreciate that many will oppose especially Kruse and his supporters.
Katrine has become a single parent mother although its father Kasper is playing a major in the boys upbringing and care As they are both working hard the boy is in the care of her mother who appears to have become a permanent fixture although she has her husband and home. Kasper has moved back into the media and co hosts th news programme with her boss,
Birgitte arranged to meet Kruse hoping he will provide a safe seat and a return to ministerial duties albeit in the Shadow cabinet. It is pay back time and he rejects her offer and after talking things over with Bent she decide to contest the leadership of the party as any member to do.
She approaches Katrine to be her media director who is finding working full time and being a mum challenging, using her mother as and when necessary as well as Kasper playing an important role so the child’s first words are grandma and daddy but not mummy. Her predecessor, Hanne who also works again at the TV station presses Katrine to spend time with the child given her experience where she lost contact with her daughter because of being a foreign correspondence as a young mother .
When Katrine meets with Birgitte and Bent to discuss the campaign we learn that the Party now has only ten thousand members in 92 organised districts each with a local leader who has the vote in the leadership campaign together with the Members of Parliament where there are now only 18, When Birgitte goes to meet one f the leading members Jon, with views close to her own and also an opponent of Kruse she finds first she cannot enter the Parliament Building, despite having been the Prime Minister, without possession of the appropriate pass is let in as guest when another member, a female Member recognises her, and Jon who just gets the message is thrilled about her return but says he cannot openly support because of the power Kruse now yields threatening and intimidating people, especially many district leaders into in critical support..
They decide to go on the offensive and she participate in a TV interview which has the desire effect of immediately brings some influential party member to her side. However Kruse does not give up his position without a vigorous contest and she fails to get the 56 seats required to win the leadership by five..
n the final scene we see her inspecting a dilapidated building which she takes on lease and when asked what she wants is for she says a new political Party. In the second episode she approaches Katrine to become the Communications Director and they approach a female member of the Moderate party who as a Member of Parliament enthusiastically support Birgitte and now finds herself cut off. She also approaches Jon although his support for her leadership was cautioned by Bent because he thought the man was after the Party Leadership and was using Birgitte for this purpose.
On a visit to the Parliament building Katrina meet Bent and assume he knows about the latest development but although Birgitte knows that he will come round in the end having been a member and supporter for 40 years she knows that his first reaction would be hostile and had hoped to advise him what she was doing once they had progressed and were in a position to go public.
A meeting takes place between Birgitte, Bent and Kruse in which the leader offers her a seat in Parliament and deputy leader of the party but she refuses because he is unwilling to make any concession on the issue of the new repatriation legislation. He warms that she is now an opponent and he will fight her all the way. She says he will have her resignation within an hour and Bent comments that she is no longer his friend.
A very different response eventually come from a senior member of the New Right party who has married a black refugee to the country and where later he makes the point that the very legislation he helped to pass means that their son cannot wear a hooded top because of the risk of being picked for a misdemeanour and then being open to repatriation. It is a very big step for him to make, and even after he arrives at the first policy making and launch meeting of those involved he hesitates and momentarily withdraws unable to because he cannot send the letter resigning from his party and become and an Independent.
Katrine has explained the development to her mother who remains hostile because of the insecurity financially and the impact on her role as a single parent. Although sworn to tell no one she tells Kasper and he pretends that it will be on the news that evening. He is joking and in fact on the Kasper Torben show he says he believes that Birgitte has quit politics after the failure of her attempt to become leader of the Moderates.
Through a misunderstanding, I think Katrine believes Kasper is staying for a meal first before taking their child to his home although it is not clear if he living on his own or with someone after the couple split up yet again. He only stays for part of a glass of wine. However Katrine does have a one night fling with the new Director of News Division having previously approached about returning to the TV station after failure of Birgitte to gain the leadership of the Moderates.
The News Director has a held meeting with Torben raising with him the unit cost of his division which is increasing as production cost rise but viewership falls. He had made it plain that without improvement Torben’s job is on the line. When Katrine fails to rejoin the station and then arranges for a rival TV station to have the first interview with Birgitte after the new Party announcement is made then his future becomes the issue and he expresses his anger to Katrine at what he regards as a betrayal.
Katrine also expresses anger towards her mother who is constantly commenting on the lack of time her daughter is devoting to her son, her financial insecurity and the state in which she keeps her apartment. When mother accuses her daughter of still being a child inside, Katrine flips and sends her mother packing saying she will manage her son on her own but then is forced to take the child to press conference launch of the new Party at the Parliament Building.
In order to finance the new party Birgitte considers giving up their leased apartment and moving to something smaller and less expensive which the daughter takes in her stride but which anger her son who says he does not want to move. While the relationship status of her ex husband is not clear relations between the two appear comfortable and relaxed and her helps out Birgitte with some surplus furniture from his business enterprise involvement.
The lover from Hong arrives on his way from a meeting in Germany to Norway which confused about his role and that of Birgitte in Hong Kong but this was settled in the introduction given to her for the TV appearance when it was stated that since her defeat as Prime Minister, and where I presume she was one of the party members losing her seat she had worked as a lecturers and on the board of a number of companies
With the failure of the approach from the leader of her now previous party she had no alternative but to go public and the press conference is arrange in which she makes a passionate and well argued case why the party is needed as the Moderates have effectively moved into an alliance with the governing coalition over the immigration and deportation issue. The show stopper is the appearance of the former member of New Right party with his young wife to explain why he has joined. However the magic moment is the appearance of Bent who also arrives and asks if he can join, shortly after she learns that already there have been 10000 likes on a social net work site.
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