JANET STREET-PORTER: Finland leader’s only crime was to let her hair down behind closed doors

We are blessed with a shambolic Prime Minister who has taken two holidays in two weeks. Who appears to have left his official base in Downing Street and is selling a home he has never lived in for hundreds of thousands of pounds profit.

He’s a bloke who relies on rich pals to host his belated wedding reception, pay for his home furnishings and lend him luxurious houses for holidays.

Someone so disorganised that his clapped-out car is sitting on a London Street where passers-by can enjoying reading the labels on boxes of personal belongings.

Our outgoing Prime Minister is someone whose grasp of the truth is economical at best. Who misled to parliament and fudged the truth about what socialising went on in his office when the rest of us were told to stay at home in lockdown.

Contrast Boris Johnson’s amazing ability to slither through life for years with a joke and a carefully unkempt Coco the Clown hairdo (designed to divert attention from what comes out of his mouth) with the hard judgement meted out to Sanna Marin, Prime Minister of Finland.

Sanna’s crime? Letting her hair down and partying in the official residence while two of her mates took their tops off and posed on a desk with a homemade Finland sign over their breasts.

I can hardly believe the severity of the Finnish Premier’s other misdemeanour: being filmed writhing around on the dance floor to rap music whilst embracing another woman. In the past she’s been knocked for attending music festivals, and, on one shocking occasion, forgetting to wear a bra!

After pictures and videos of Sanna emerged on social media letting her hair down at the recent party a storm of criticism ensued, and she offered to take a drugs test, which subsequently proved negative.

Isn’t all of this a perfect example of the double standards that operate in modern politics?The reason why so many of our female MPs give up, because they can’t take the sexism at work, the on-line abuse and the blatant misogyny.

Sanna’s crime? Letting her hair down (pictured) and partying in the official residence while two of her mates took their tops off and posed on a desk with a Finland sign over their breasts

When appointed in 2019 aged 34, Sanna Marin was the youngest Prime Minister in the world, heading a five-party coalition. At the time, the leaders of Finland’s five main parties were female, most under 40. Sanna put together a Cabinet in which 12 of the 19 Ministers were female.

The new Prime Minister received buckets of praise for living in an ostentatious flat, for her dedication to hard work and her grasp of the big issues. She’s been on top of her media interviews and embarrassing gaffes have been kept to a minimum.

There was bound to be a kickback. And now it’s happened. Any woman clever and determined enough to claw her way to the top must prove she’s 110% better than any bloke in the same job.

Consider Sanna’s hard-fought rise up through the ranks. Her parents split up when she was young, and she worked in a bakery and as a cashier in order to fund her way through university. She got involved in politics at 20 and within seven years she was Council Leader running Finland’s third biggest city.

Always regarded as very capable, she’s on top of her briefs, who has incredible stamina, works hard and is known for an attention to detail. Her mother isin a same-sex relationship and Sanna is known for her sympathetic attitude to LGBT issues.

Does that not sound like the polar opposite to the bumbling clown currently in charge of our Tory party (for the next week or so anyway)?

Ms Marin is currently leading Finland’s application to become a member of Nato, a critical move as Russian aggression to the West increases. The ratification process is nearly completed. She has been praised for her swift and decisive action during the Covid pandemic, she has led action on climate change, and pledged that Finland will be net zero by 2035.

Since taking office, she has married her partner and has a young daughter. She increased parental leave for both sexes.

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Her coalition government had the highest approval rating since records began, and she is widely regarded as far more popular than her party, the centre-left SDP.

Should all this good work be negated because a smart woman had the misfortune to be filmed by people who should know better?

Of course, Sanna has the right to a private life, to have fun, get drunk and behave badly. Her mistake was to include people in her entourage who have turned out to be bad friends.

She’s said: ‘I am upset that these videos have become public…I have a family life. I have a work life. And I have free time to spend with my friends’.

She seemed close to tears, announcing ‘I have a right to a private life… partying, dancing, singing’.

So many male world leaders seem pretty poor role models- no wonder few young people are interested in entering politics. Donald Trump has allegedly been recorded telling a pal he’d like to ‘grab women by the pussy’ and his extra-marital affairs are tawdry in the extreme. He claims to be ‘a star’ but he is a preposterous confection, desperately trying to cling on to power, as the FBI mull over the 700 pages of top-secret documents they seized from his private residence.

Boris Johnson has not only bent the rules, he has dragged British politics to a low ebb- to the extent that the public have no faith in the ability of either of the two contenders to replace him.

Sanna represents a new generation, the generation who care about the environment, sexual equality and parental responsibility.

The nice generation.

But she could be forced out of office by scheming right wingers- and you can bet on one thing- they will mostly be male.

Our last female Prime Minister was a cold, nervous, socially inept individual. Pathetically weak at communication, who became a laughing stock with her Abba dance moves, a desperate attempt to show her ‘human’ side.

Now we are facing the prospect of Liz Truss in Downing Street, a woman who has changed her policies and her allegiances almost as many times as I’ve bought new bras. She’s not short of ambition, but is she a real human?

For all her faults, Sanna Marin shines out as exactly the kind of person that will encourage the next generation to enter politics and keep democracy alive, not scheming Liz.