It's very sensible, Jamiet, if there were a sensible destination for that money, such as better roads and schools. But no, they're redistributing it to the unemployed. Being unemployed in Holland is a great experience. There's people from Poland coming in to do the work you should be doing (harvesting crops for example) and you can watch them do it for money.

I think the agreements are not as bad as some people and newspapers (Telegraaf, ugh, Marx Rutte, really?) claim they are. The goal is fiscal conservatism, aka balance the budget. Ofcourse right-wing parties rather not have increased taxes and lef-wing/labour parties rather no have budget cuts in for example social security or development. Fact is though, these parties will have to work together, and in order to balance the budget, we'll thus have to do a bit of both.

All and all I think it's quite a fair compromis, and finally some things are happening on labour and housing markets.

Where are you from Bonaparte your name sounds very French?

I'm actually from Amsterdam. I voted VVD (I'm a classic liberal/libertarian leaning, within the Netherlands I'm always am doubting between VVD and D66). Anyway, ofcourse I'm also not happy with redistribution of money, just to redistribute money. However, this is a classic left-wing wish and sometimes you have to give and take (remember VVD doesn't have a real alternative for another coalition). This is the package deal they decided to make and I don't think the extra costs are all that unreasonable. Point is, they're atleast working on the deficit and market innovations, so taxes do not have to be raised in the future.

Ow okay. Just curious, I'm happy to discuss with anyone from other countries as well. I actually disagree that there's no other possible coalition by the way. I think he should have assembled everything left of the PvdA and compromised with them rather than with the PvdA. I'm sure Wilders learnt his lesson and wouldn't walk away a second time: it never does any good to anyone that does that. They would also have a majority in the Senate which is not inconvenient given how politically polarized that body has become.

And yeah, they're redistributing money just for the sake of it, that's terrible.

Ouch! *Right of PvdA* :-)

There simply is no right majority. Both PVV and CDA lost big time during last electons, and no party except VVD and maybe SGP is willing to work with the PVV anymore. A coalition without the PvdA is not realistic.

Painful huh? How they just "don't get along". That's terrible in and of itself. I think the leaders of PVV, CDA, GL and D66 should have all stepped down the day after the elections. Failure to deliver anything of substance: exit.

D66 was actually one of the winners of last election.

I must say, I don't follow things much. There seems to be a shift to the two poles of right and left but those two poles now work together. I wonder how long it will last and retain its credibility. Seeing how things are going right now, the whole thing might just explode - or not.

Redhouse, can you list 10 good things the dutch government have done in the past 6 months?

D66 won two extra of the total 150 seats in Parliament, Ursa. If we have elections every, say, three years (if we're lucky!) and you need 30 seats (1/5) for real power in Dutch politics, assuming they win two seats every election, they would have taken 30 years to become a power factor.

Alexander Pechthold has the biggest mouth of the Binnenhof and his party only itched forward, his party should send him away pronto to choose someone who can, to paraphrase a Dutch expression, make a dent in a package of butter.

@orathaic,

Our last government was, given the circumstances they were in, an excellent government.

They were confronted with an extreme-right party that agreed with the coalition partners VVD and CDA on lots of issues, but who had the disadvantage of being a bunch of racist asshats. The first Rutte government solved this very elegantly by obtaining their parliamentary support, giving them the vital majority, but without giving them governmental positions, which allowed the ministries of my country to be ran by at least semi-professionals. They effectively adopted some of the policies of the extreme right that were extreme, but not unethical, which I believe was a great way to absorb the electoral shock that hit our political system in 2010.

The way they handled the withdrawal of Wilders from the government earlier this year and the contrast of the professionality with which Rutte and Verhagen approached the cabinet crisis and the amateurism of Wilders and his racist friends allowed Wilders to be effectively neutralized (he lost spectacularly during the last election, while always being on the winning side in elections before that), which - at least for now - puts an end to the ever increasing power and viciousness of the populist right wing.

As for measures that government has taken, I didn't agree with all of them, but I believe the budget cuts on Defense in combination with our sustained efforts in Afghanistan was very well handled, although I did not agree with the cuts themselves (neither did the government parties, it was a necessary concession to Wilders).

Further, they did good work in constructing roads and rail roads and increased the maximum speed at highways in what I believe was a safe and responsible manner.

I also believe that the euro-crisis was handled in an imperfect, but reasonable manner, particularly when compared to other countries. Alligning with the United Kingdom and Germany on several issues was a good strategy to let our voice in Europe heard, without being the odd man out.

Last, they took a tough stance on immigration and did not resort to sentimentalism in the case of some of the tougher evictions of illegal immigrants.

If you want ten things, I'll be happy to find out more than what just popped into my mind while writing this response.

And it was pretty hard for our government to do ten good things these past 6 months, since they'd lost their majority in april this year. It's november. So during this period, they governed our country without a majority and we're still in good shape. Does that answer your question? :-)

@ redhouse: "There's people from Poland coming in to do the work you should be doing (harvesting crops for example)"

Why should I be harvesting crops in Holland? I have a job in the UK.

(That was a joke, I understand what you actually meant)

@Jamie - I was going to say something, but I don't know if you are being intentionally obtuse or don't understand the concept that "you" is often used in place of saying "one". But I'm sure if you were being intentionally obtuse, you will have a comback stating that "of course I am only one" or something just as dense. :-)

Damn it Jamie!

Now for a serious point:

@ redhouse: "they're redistributing money just for the sake of it, that's terrible."

Redistribution of wealth from the wealthy to the poor is an end in itself. To say "redistributing money just for the sake of it" is like saying "they're saving lives just for the sake of it!"

I think his point is they are just pulling in money and it isn't earmarked to a specific need. So where is it going to go? Of course, I'm not gutch so can't speak to the veracity of my statement. that was just how I interpretted what he was saying. And I agree that you don't collect money just to be collectingf it. You set a budget and you take what is needed to meet the budget.

@Jamiet, there are very, very few poor people in Holland. We have a very low gini coefficient and a high average income. The illusion of poor people is created for electoral reasons.

no jamie! that was not a joke.

jokes are funny.

@redhouse, that is good enough, I wanted to know to see if you're capable of seeing greys instead of simple black and white issues (the bad or worst options lead my line of questioning)

orathaic, I'm terrible at grey shades. So do you follow Dutch politics? :-o

I've heard there's a popular book on the subject that's quite informative.

lol. You read it to me, Octavious? =)

Only if you let me do accents and sound effects :p

OW MY

@ Redhouse, i do think its a smart compromise. They agreed on cutting the cost by 16.000.000.000 (a lot of zero's there) while taking away the pain for the PVDA by bypassing the people with the lowest 'income'. They couldn't object any more.

The poverty rate is above 6% in the Netherlands and grew steadily under the VVD. I guess one million people "don't exist".

http://www.sabanews.nl/6%20News/0%20Saba%20WWW/wordpress/?p=3669

There is no poverty in the Netherlands. That ridiculous relative poverty stat that gets applied to Western countries is an insult to those who suffer real poverty.

http://www.euro.centre.org/data/1226583242_93408.pdf

"the rate of poverty varies between 10% and 23% in the countries of the European union: with poverty being the lowest in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, and the highest in Latvia (see figure 1)."

Hi Putin how's life?

I guess that's how you two can be rightwing, you live in a fictional world where there's no poverty in the West. The same fictional world where all the rich are hardworking & honest.

The poorest of the poor in the Netherlands and the UK have better healthcare than tens of millions of Yanks, and there's no one starving unless they've put themselves in that position through some act of gross stupidity.

The US is pretty unique in that it's a Western nation in which genuine poverty is actually achievable. Well done with that. You should feel proud.

Why should I feel proud, we got there following your barmy policy proscriptions.