I think it's a bit more democratic, though many in Sweden would prefer it to be more-so. (the major parties used to just sort of agree on 95%+ of issues, leading to some disenfranchisement across the population).
I think though it's a lot about the fact that the UK is sort-of an "adversarial" kind of democracy, and Sweden is more like a "consensus" driven democracy..
The UK is also pretty often plagued by sleaze scandals for officials in public office, by contrast Swedish politicians can be incompetent or fuck-up, but there's much more public access to what they're doing.
I think it's also true that people feel that public services are pretty good, even if the healthcare system is overburdened, and that there could be more police officers: taxes are high but most people definitely think that it's worth it.
The way COVID was handled and the ongoing freedom of speech issues in the UK are also something that make me not trust the government, they'll violate my rights on a whim. Compared to Sweden where even during COVID they didn't lock down (even if it was arguably the right thing to do and would have saved a lot of lives) because it would have violated peoples rights.
I'm not going to sit here and claim that Sweden is a paragon of virtue, they get a lot wrong and there are plenty of inefficiencies, but compared to the UK it's pretty stark.
It's like comparing trust in government between the UK and Russia. (I think that's actually a pretty fair comparison, USA and UK have comparatively similar trust in government compared to Sweden vs UK).
The wast majority of deaths during covid in Sweden occurred not because of lock down differences to other countries, but because of how elder care system. I recall some doctor even described themselves as bringers of death because of how much the system did not work. The post analysis of covid also brings this up as the reason why the numbers didn't end up as good as they had hoped, and when the lock down of elder care facilities did arrive it was both too late and too draconian, including news articles of elders "escaping" through windows.
It was found that having a new person almost every day spending about 15 minutes at some elderly person home before going to the next person, without enough time to even wash their hands, had bad results during an pandemic. They also found out that having a very small number of doctors going from elder care facility to the next in order to sign off on all medicine was also a bad idea.
I think though it's a lot about the fact that the UK is sort-of an "adversarial" kind of democracy, and Sweden is more like a "consensus" driven democracy..
The UK is also pretty often plagued by sleaze scandals for officials in public office, by contrast Swedish politicians can be incompetent or fuck-up, but there's much more public access to what they're doing.
I think it's also true that people feel that public services are pretty good, even if the healthcare system is overburdened, and that there could be more police officers: taxes are high but most people definitely think that it's worth it.
The way COVID was handled and the ongoing freedom of speech issues in the UK are also something that make me not trust the government, they'll violate my rights on a whim. Compared to Sweden where even during COVID they didn't lock down (even if it was arguably the right thing to do and would have saved a lot of lives) because it would have violated peoples rights.
I'm not going to sit here and claim that Sweden is a paragon of virtue, they get a lot wrong and there are plenty of inefficiencies, but compared to the UK it's pretty stark.
It's like comparing trust in government between the UK and Russia. (I think that's actually a pretty fair comparison, USA and UK have comparatively similar trust in government compared to Sweden vs UK).