Opinion pieces, columns and insights into Dutch news and current affairs from key commentators. The views expressed in these columns are the writers’ own. To contribute or request our guidelines, contact editor@dutchnews.nl.
As amusing as it may be to see Christian Democrat and Labour MPs falling over each other to defend the rights of elderly viewers, their furious reaction to the plans to scrap popular quiz programme Lingo (see Friday’s DutchNews) does make you wonder whether our public representatives might not be more gainfully occupied helping to dig the tunnels and build the new road and rail links they keep voting to give us. More >
The GreenLeft party in Amsterdam has a novel idea to help prostitutes who have been affected by the council’s cancellation of 37 brothel licences, reports the Parool. More >
With all the far-right splinter parties competing for scarce seats in next month’s general election, it is hardly surprising that they have now all started biting each other. Voters meanwhile must be scratching their heads over the plethora of parties: ÉénNL, Freedom Party, Fortuyn, PvNL, all of which are hoping to benefit from the anti-Islam vote. More >
There have been few front page photos more depressing recently than that in today’s Telegraaf – a production line of girls in bikinis queuing up to pose provocatively for a photographer working on shots for the 2007 Axe deodorant calendar. More >
The pesky little ‘korenwolf’, or wild hamster, has finally hit the headlines again after years of silence. Builders everywhere must have prayed that the rodent, a protected species, had actually died out. More >
News editors used to give new reporters one piece of advice: ‘Always remember, all politicians are liars and cheats.’ This cynical caveat should have been in most journalists’ minds during the past two weeks when politicians wrestled with two major scandals: the report on a fire in a Schiphol cell complex which killed 11 refugees and Amsterdam’s role in allowing a ship to dump toxic waste in Ivory Coast which killed seven people. More >
The main reason for the unbelievably complicated and bureaucratic way of paying for healthcare in Holland is an obsession with solidarity between the sick and the healthy. And an insistence that everyone should basically pay the same. More >
It is probably quite easy to resign as a minister when you know there is an election nine weeks away anyway. Justice minister Piet Hein Donner, facing his third sticky patch as a minister, and planning minister Sybilla Dekker, were very quick to hand in their resignations yesterday after publication of the damning Schiphol fire report. More >