By Greg Milam, Sky News Europe correspondent
If you like a good political sex scandal, come here to Finland.
The place is still abuzz with the goings-on at the top over the last few months.
Forget John Prescott's private life, this is a country in which the Prime Minister's popularity ROSE after his former mistress published her kiss-and-tell memoirs.
Matti Vanhanen had broken up with her by text message. "It's over," he texted. Brief and to the point, you'll agree.
Far busier with this thumb was Ilkka Kanerva. He sent 200 text messages to a member of the Scandinavian Dolls dance troupe.
Unfortunately, he was Finland's foreign minister at the time. He isn't any more.
He was sacked after publication of some of his messages to erotic dancer Johanna Tukiainen.
She sold them to a magazine, among them one message in which Kanerva asked Tukiainen: "Would you like to do it in an exotic place? Where could it be?"
It wasn't the racy content of the messages that got him sacked so much as the fact that Kanerva had already been warned in 2005 for bombarding two models with text messages.
He had always been a colourful character and the Finns are used to putting up with such scandals but it seems patience is running out.
Maybe because of the results of a recent review at the Finnish parliament which revealed high numbers of women who say they've been harassed, often by politicians.
New rules are now in place and women are more willing to speak out.
The end of Ilkka Kanerva is a sign of that new outlook.
Harrassment is what the women of Finnland have to endure. I'm glad, the politicians are being held to account.
Posted by: Tom Ireland May 22, 2008 8:38:32 AM
Naturally such [Tribal-Enigma] have been practiced for entertainment purposes, however misconstrued.
Posted by: Khalid May 15, 2008 7:49:43 AM
Ha ha... we're doing all the same as the rest of the world. Finns aren't any worse than the others...
The morale is low everywhere in the world and has been for decades.
Cheats, lies, crime and betrayals are the news. Very sad!
Posted by: Riikka May 14, 2008 10:53:29 PM