Whenever Helle Thorning- Schmidt arrives for EU summits in Brussels she elicits one of two responses in the press room. The largely male and heterosexual hacks either stare at her and growl, “That’s a fine, fine woman,” or look up, confused by Denmark’s first female prime minister, and ask, “Who’s she? Where’s Birgitte?”
For fans of the compelling political drama Borgen, any statsminister except Birgitte Nyborg, played equally compellingly by Sidse Babett Knudsen, is an imposter.
After three series Nyborg departed our screens, leaving Thorning-Schmidt facing her own battle to retain power in the Borgen, the nickname for Denmark’s parliament, in the Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen.
Denmark has election fever ahead of next Thursday's poll. So is Borgen's creator, Adam Price. This is the tightest election in years, with Thorning-Schmidt's ruling "red" centre-left camp neck and neck with the centre-right "blue" opposition.
For Price the real-life election is more dramatic than he would ever have dared script. “We would have dismissed this in the writers’ room, saying it is just too much,” he says.
The 48-year-old screenwriter is candid about his inspiration for his lead character. Just as many Danes will point to the country's EU commissioner, Margrathe Vestanger, as to the 48 year-old Thorning-Schmidt. Last year the prime minister told the BBC that Borgen, though excellent, was "fiction, with little to do with my reality or the reality as a politician".
Price agrees, but it is impossible not to draw parallels between the real and fictional Danish leaders.
Coalition politics
As
Borgen
fans know, Danish politics is dominated by complex coalition arithmetic. A prime minister is not the politician who can assemble a majority in the Folketing parliament but the leader who can prevent a majority against them.
The real-life drama of this election campaign is Thorning-Schmidt’s remarkable comeback. She spent most of the past four years defending her decision to reverse campaign promises as essential for turning around the crisis-hit Danish economy.
At her lowest point Thorning-Schmidt trailed the opposition by 17 points and, like her television counterpart Birgitte Nyborg, was written off as a rookie and a lightweight: good for a selfie with Barack Obama but little else.
That was until this year, when, like Nyborg, Thorning-Schmidt got tough and changed the game.
Anticipating a key election theme, the prime minister launched a tough-talking campaign on immigration in January, demanding on posters that “if you come to Denmark you must work”.
In February she earned respect at home and abroad for her sovereign performance during the shootings at a Copenhagen cafe and synagogue. After an unsteady start she looked like a leader.
Last month Thorning-Schmidt performed her greatest gamble so far. On May 26th she presented figures showing that the crisis-hit Danish economy was growing again. A day later she called a general election.
Despite closing the gap with her rivals, the Danish leader – again like her fictional counterpart – is still unable to shake off fully the discrimination women face in public life.
Price recalls a conversation with Thorning-Schmidt before she became prime minister. She was fuming about a political rival who said he would devote himself 100 per cent to the job and sacrifice his family life.
Men who say that are praised as dedicated, she complained; by contrast, a woman who said the same would be castigated as a bad wife and mother.
“Even in a progressive society like Denmark,” Price says, “we still have this little gene of natural conservatism, believing that women should always be closer to the family.”
Gucci Helle
Since taking office Thorning-Schmidt has been put through a far more rigorous ringer than male rivals. Critics dubbed her “Gucci Helle” for her smart appearance, speculated how often she sees her children, and launched personal attacks on her marriage to Stephen Kinnock – son of the former British Labour leader and European Commission vice-president Neil Kinnock – who is now a Labour MP in Wales.
With Borgen behind him, Adam Price says he's working on a new BBC drama with Michael Dobbs, writer of the original House of Cards, and a Danish television drama about religion and faith.
He is intrigued by the way the tension that drove Borgen lives on in real life. Despite their differences, Denmark's real and fictional prime ministers share a common fate with women in even supposedly liberal western countries: the higher cost of professional success.
“It is the central dilemma, or nightmare, of our time, the pressure to have it all,” he says. “I don’t think we really know the choices Helle Thorning-Schmidt has had to make, and I think it is good that we don’t know. We should simply let her be a professional woman who does a very important job.”
