During the Blair years it was the West Wing that obsessed the Westminster village.
The fast-talking, fast-walking, frenetic White House drama
somehow seemed to reflect and tap in to the more optimistic mood of
those times. Oh, and the good guys always seemed to win.
Now rather more bizarrely, it is Borgen that's all the buzz.
A moody, Danish political drama, complete with subtitles, prolonged pauses and superficially consensual continental politics would not seem the sort of programme to become the hot topic in the coffee bars and corridors of the Commons.
Even more improbably the central character in Borgen is such an unlikely figure when viewed from the staid, male dominated world of Westminster.
Birgitte Nyborg is an attractive, well-intentioned, left-leaning, green-tinged female prime minister who's worried about her weight and leads a party called "The Moderates".
So far, so terribly naff.
Must watch And yet Borgen has become the "must watch" of the Westminster village.
In part this is because it tells the instantly recognisable tale of an unlikely coalition government battling with austerity and awkward alliances and compromises.
But it is also because it shines
a particularly harsh, uncompromising Scandinavian light on those of us
peddling our trade around SW1.
For MPs, their aides and associates it tells some uncomfortable eternal truths about the world of politics.Continue reading the main story
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