Meanwhile in Sweden...

What do we know about Sweden?

Yes, the home of the Nobel Prize, the Volvo, IKEA and Abba. For the more mature among us who can remember the 1960s and 1970s, it was the favoured bolt hole for young American men seeking to avoid the military draft for the Vietnam war.

Sweden has been largely dominated politically in modern times by the left-wing Social Democrats since 2014 which have led a minority government with the support of The Greens. The country has the highest taxes in the world and the most generous social security system with the welfare state consuming more than 50 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.

Today there is a population of about ten million of which an estimated 8.1 per cent are Muslims – significantly higher than the 3.5 per cent total as recently as 2000.

The children and grandchildren of the left-wing so-called progressives who ran the country thirty and forty years ago have continued that noble tradition although many in Sweden are beginning to question this orthodoxy. Latest opinion polls show that support for the Social Democrats has crashed to 21.7 per cent while support for the right-wing anti-mass immigration Sweden Democrats surged to 26.1%. If that poll is reflected in the next general election in September, the Sweden Democrats will be the largest parliamentary group.

Polls are showing that mass Muslim immigration and law and order are the key concerns in the minds of most voters and there is a growing feeling that the current government, gripped in an unbreakable vice of political correctness, can't or won't do anything to address these concerns.

Social experiments imposed by the current government and its political allies in local authorities have resulted in some entirely predictable and even laughable outcomes.

One program introduced on the first Monday of each month at a public swimming pool in the city of Malmo eliminated gender-separate areas such as change-rooms and toilets in an attempt to encourage transgender people to come along and not feel threatened. As it happens, Malmo is a heavily migrant populated city.

Guess what happened?

The organisers found that while very few transgender people were making use of the program, the pool was invaded by men and boys taking the opportunity to perv on naked women. One advocate for the initiative, a University lecturer in diversity issues, Ms Jeanette Larsson, was shocked by this male invasion.

"They were in the showers, in the restrooms, in the locker rooms and on the bathing bridges. The place was invaded by men, not by transgenders from what I could see. Everything felt incredibly unpleasant," she said.

Malmo City Councillors Hannah Thome of the Left Party and Linda Hiltmann of the Feminist Initiative Party who introduced the whole idea were also terribly shocked. Ms Thome said this unforeseen outcome was "an expression of the patriarchal world we live in."

Funnily enough, the whole concept is now under review.

At the end of last year when Sweden was gripped by a cold winter and heavy snow fell in the capital Stockholm, the left-wing council had the bright idea of introducing "gender equal" snow removal policy. And, no, that doesn't mean that there is boy/bad snow and girl/good snow.

In 2014, a coalition of Social Democrats, Greens, Left Party and the Feminist Initiative Party was elected to run the city and the introduction of a "feminist" snow clearance policy was high on their agenda. This policy was based on the idea that men used cars much more than women so the previous policy which prioritised clearing roads over pedestrian pavements was clearly sexist.

Guess what happened?

After a particularly heavy snowfall, the city was thrown into chaos. Hospitals reported a fourfold increase in broken bones, thousands couldn't get to work because buses and trains were blocked or cancelled, ambulances ground to a halt, deliveries to shops and other businesses simply stopped and travelling by car became impossible. The public outcry was deafening.

Police said conditions on the city's roads had become "deplorable". The council opposition, not wanting to actually upset feminists, mildly described the whole idea as "a little silly". Their spokesperson Cecilea Brinck, said the policy, far from making life better for women, it had actually made life "bad for everyone."

Even the city's Green Party transport head responsible for the feminist snow clearing policy, Daniel Hellden, admitted, "It's obvious that it hasn't worked, and the question is why."

He wondered out loud, "Is it the weather or the procedures which we in the city have put in place?"

"Overall, I say that I regret that Stockholmers have not been able to get to their jobs, kindergartens and schools, but there is not much more to say about it."

Presumably, it didn't occur to him that it was the "feminist" and "gender neutral" snow clearing policy was to blame and not God because the council hasn't actually dumped the policy for next winter later this year.

The country's Environment Minister Ms Karolina Skog agrees with the Stockholm City Council that women are being discriminated against when it comes to transport and reducing the number of cars on the road is actually a gender issue.

"Cars are driven largely by men so by giving a lot of space to cars we are giving a lot of space to men at the expense of women," she said. Obviously, this has to end. It is sexist and shocking, isn't it?

Sweden held its Emergency Awareness Week from May 28 to June 3 and the government sent every household – about 4.8 million – a copy of a 20-page glossy booklet entitled "If Crisis or War Comes" which was illustrated with scenes of armed conflict. According to the government, the booklet contains information necessary to ensure people are "better prepared for dealing with serious events both in peacetime and – in the worst-case scenario – war."

This is the first time any Swedish Government has felt such a need – it didn't happen in World War 11 when the country faced the risk of an invasion by Nazi Germany or during the cold war when the USSR and its communist eastern European allies were sabre rattling.

But, being Sweden, the booklet studiously avoided any politically incorrect mention of Muslim extremism and the threat that poses despite the fact that earlier this year when the booklet was being prepared, the Security Service chief Anders Thornberg said that Islamic extremism continued to pose the major threat to the public. In 2017, Swedish authorities admitted that the number of violent Islamist extremists had risen ten-fold in a decade to more than 2,000.

Fans of The Muppets will fondly recall the character of the Swedish chef who is clearly demented, is usually depicted in the kitchen and who waves around unlikely cooking utensils including firearms, sports equipment and hand tools. And he is sprouting such unintelligible gibberish that the Swedes apparently think that he is Norwegian.

If they pay more attention to their leaders then they will finally realise that the chef is Swedish.