In an interview last week, the party's well-presented, charismatic leader Jimmie Åkesson put his party's sharp upswing down to the 'Solvesborg-effect' - named after his pretty hometown in southern Sweden, where his fiancée Louise Erixon now serves as mayor. 

"There is a Solvesborg-effect," he told the Aftonbladet newspaper. "A lot of people see what we do when we have the chance to govern, and they appreciate what they see."

In Sölvesborg, the party has moved to stop flying the rainbow flag once a year to celebrate Stockholm's gay pride festival, has said it will stop purchasing "provocative, challenging" public art, and has banned children from wearing Islamic headdress.