Jagland takes a firm stance against Jens Stoltenberg – VG

Former Labor leader and Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland releases the first volume of his political memoirs on Wednesday entitled “You Must Own It Yourself.”

In the book, which covers the years up to 2002, he takes a hard line against former prime minister and Labor leader Jens Stoltenberg. A heartbreaking leadership battle ended with Jagland’s resignation in 2002, after ten years as leader.

Jagland accuses the ‘Stoltenberg people’ of ‘supplying the press with negative things that it could write almost daily’. He says he was very upset when he learned that secret meetings were taking place to replace him with Stoltenberg.

– I had to break

Jagland mentions Stoltenberg when he recounts his illness in January 2002, and Bård Tufte Johansen broke the news with a chicken dance in front of Rikshospitalet. Jagland writes that he suddenly turned black for him at the Storting, and an ambulance took him to Rikshospitalet.

“When one of Jens’ employees came out into the hall and asked if there was anything Jens could do, Hanne had to break down,” Jagland writes of his wife Hanne Grotjord.

Sissel Kruse Larsen, Stoltenberg’s communications consultant, tells VG this:

– Jens Stoltenberg recounted his version of his time as a Norwegian politician and prime minister in his autobiography. You have nothing to add beyond this.

Jagland became prime minister in 1996, but resigned only a year later. In the election campaign, he had issued a fateful ultimatum: if he was to continue, support for the Labor Party must be at least as good as in previous parliamentary elections, when they received 36.9 percent.

In the latest VG poll, the Labor Party received 22.7 percent.

Jagland reacts strongly to Stoltenbergs book entry since 2016 that was divided against him.

Here’s how Jagland describes what it was like to read Stoltenberg’s book:

“The phrases” I knew they were working for my candidacy and that they were among the anonymous sources in the media advocating a change of leadership … I did not stop them “hit my head like a bomb.

Jagland writes that now, in 2020, he can finally give his side of the case.

Now I am free to tell. I do not claim that what I deliver here is a historical conclusion, only that it complements the picture. But this is my own story told as openly and honestly as I’ve managed, a story that I own.

– A bomb

One key event was a secret meeting at former Secretary of State Jan Erik Larsen’s apartment in Bislett.

The meeting was attended by former Minister of State Bjarne Håkon Hanssen, current Labor leader Jonas Gahr Støre and Stoltenberg’s adviser Marianne Aasen Agdestein.

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In his own political memoirs, Stoltenberg wrote that he knew what they were doing:

“We made sure they didn’t see us together when we got there. We were afraid someone would suspect that we were joining the faction. And that’s exactly what we were going to do.”

Jagland writes:

“Furthermore, he writes that those present thought Thorbjørn had to go and Jens had to come in.”

He then quotes Stoltenberg’s memoirs: “I didn’t give them an answer, but I knew they were working for my candidacy and that they were among the anonymous sources in the media advocating for a change of leadership. I didn’t stop them. “

– desperate

Jagland writes that he was less confident in himself when he was at his worst.

“I thought back to the bad times when malicious features showed up almost every day. Gradually I gained less confidence in myself. In the end, I thought it was as desperate as it was written. “

But he emphasizes that he recovered quickly.

“Now, in 2016, I thought about how this could coincide with subsequent events. I managed to be elected secretary general of the Council of Europe by a two-thirds majority in a parliamentary assembly of 47 countries,” Jagland writes, adding:

It may not have been so desperate. It was the situation that was hopeless. “