Prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende has come out top in an experiment using American students to assess how competent Dutch politicians are – based on their photographs.

The research was carried out for the VPRO and Teleac broadcasting companies by US psychologist Alexander Todorov, who is attached to Princetown University, Nos tv reports.
Labour leader Wouter Bos and GroenLinks head Femke Halsema were in joint second place.
Bottom of the ranking of 10 politicians, who were unknown to the students, was Geert Wilders. Singer Gordon, included in the experiment as a decoy, was second bottom.