What a busy bee MP Rita Verdonk is these days. Since being thrown out of the Liberal (VVD) party, the lovely Rita has been hard at work setting up her own political party – sorry movement – named Trots op Nederland (proud of the Netherlands).

Trots op NL (Rita does not want us to abbreviate the name to TON) will be launched on April 3 and it promises to be a most festive evening – seats at the dinner for €500 and a party at Amsterdam’s cruise terminal, complete with a performance by jazz zinger Rita Reys.
Then Rita is off on a fund-raising tour of the country. The great thing about the Dutch political system is that Rita is able to organise all this while still enjoying her salary as an MP.
Setting up TON is more important than attending debates in parliament – even ones about subjects which are supposed to be at the core of TON’s concerns, like traffic jams and dual nationality.
Still, at least Rita has got a nice new logo for her party – a shield which is remarkably reminiscent of a football club badge. This is no accident, Rita says. The aim is to inspire people with the pride and passion they feel when supporting the national football team.
Which given the performance of Oranje over the past few years is not exactly a positive sign.