Only 389 days until March 15, 2023. Then the elections for the Provincial Council and the Senate will end the too long reign of VVD and D66 and their junior partners CDA and CU. Shakespeare wrote ‘Beware the Ides of March’ in his ‘Julius Caesar’.
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Applicable for today is a second quote from Brutus, who first sees himself as Savior of the Fatherland, but then – if only Rutte could do that! – realizes his time is up:
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
Robbert Dijkgraaf: raining 1
Less than a month ago in the Torentje, and already three miseries for Rutte. A new Minister of Education who is confronted in the House with the shameful behavior of the ROC Nijmegen, which first suspended teacher Paula van Manen and then fired because she had written a booklet: ‘When will we have lessons again?’ criticizing nonsensical education fashions that are forced and hastily introduced from above by school managers.
The case has been going on since 2019 and Paula van Manen has already received 40,000 euros in compensation, but would rather have her job back. Education specialist Harm Beertema told Minister Dijkgraaf: ‘This case symbolizes the authoritarian culture in which the Executive Boards, supported by a battery of lawyers, paid from the lump sum, of course, compete against a lonely individual teacher who dares to criticize are against all rationality with regard to the renewal policy that it imposes.’
The new minister twice refused to help: ‘At the moment there are no signs for me that the administrations there are restricting freedom of expression’. He thus continued to support the managers of the ROC and turned out to be a bad regent who slavishly follows his officials, even if they are wrong† So many expectations of a new start at Education and yet disappointed again after a few weeks.
Ernst Kuipers: raining 2
Another second Rutte-IV team member with a false start. Minister Kuipers learns through research by the NOS – not a mouthpiece for an opposition group, but a semi-official news provider – that in 2020 officials will have changed essential texts into advice from RIVM about mouth caps as protection against Covid-19. The Netherlands was very ill-prepared and the officials believed that they should support the hospitals with their claim to all available mouth masks by inserting in the RIVM texts that mouth masks were not so necessary in nursing homes.
Several members of the official RIVM team are now expressing their disgust at these fatal mutilations of their differing advice, but Minister Kuipers covers his officials and claims that there was no tampering but that officials only helped with ‘clarifying questions’. The independence of the OMT is ‘not affected at all’, according to the minister.
Regent Kuipers is speaking an untruth here – most likely even a lie, because as head of a large hospital he himself forcefully demanded the scarce mouth caps at the expense of the nursing homes and must therefore have been very well informed. Professor of health law Jaap Sijmons: ‘I think that even the law is being violated here. It states that the minister should not interfere with the scientific method of the RIVM. He really should stay away from that. That didn’t happen here.’
Afghanistan: no flight
And this week a third misery, for the responsibility of last year’s interim cabinet. Pakistan International Airways offered a flight from Kabul in September, but the Netherlands refuses, with the only argument being that 300 passport holders in one flight are such a tax. for the reception here.
What these three miseries have in common is that they are not – as is often the case in politics – about issues of income or money. The SP thinks the VVD is the party of the rich; the VVD sees the SP as financially nonsensical. Whoever uses the words ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in the heat of battle shows that he participates passionately in the debate, but not – we hope – that whoever thinks otherwise is morally ‘bad’.
bad or wrong
Environmentalists may see their opponents as ‘bad’, but mean – we hope – ‘misinformed’ and ‘stubborn about topics where it is better to rely on experts’. But in these three miseries, “bad” absolutely applies in the moral sense. The facts are on the table, but the two ministers Dijkgraaf and Kuipers are not keeping their backs straight. The Taliban kills, but an official finds it too much hassle to help three hundred compatriots at once.
Rutte prides himself on his rich experience in management. Then he would be able to help colleagues Dijkgraaf and Kuipers to correct their moral missteps. And he could ask the righteous Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (former minister, former head of NATO, former professor) to advise the new, inexperienced Minister of Foreign Affairs on the necessary interventions in that department. That costs no money and is not in conflict with any government agreement.
The advantage is that writer Paula van Manen and her numerous followers on Twitter see that justice will be done in her case against the managers of the ROC-Nijmegen. And that the thousands of Dutch people who have lost elderly relatives in the first months of 2020 will gain confidence in the research into the covid policy. And that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will again strive for a professional level after the misery in Afghanistan last year.
Restoring confidence does not come from talking quickly and smoothly in TV shows – if that were the recipe Mark Rutte would never have lost so much shine. Rutte knows that a few MPs from the opposition (Pieter Omtzigt, Renske Leijten, Harm Beertema and other colleagues whom I – sorry – haven’t noticed yet) tackle the ministers on broken promises and moral wrongs. The Prime Minister must do the same. But if the tame sheep of VVD, D66, CDA and CU continue to condone the mistakes, and Rutte continues to hide behind them, many disappointed voters will give up and count down the days until March 15 of next year.
Read more from Eduard Bomhoff:
The time of free money is over for Sigrid Kaag
Shame to threaten with waiting lists after corona
Whoever comes from a safe country is not an asylum seeker
This column previously appeared on Wynia’s Week† Wynia’s Week’s independent coverage is made possible by its donors. Do you also support this much-needed, unfettered journalism? Please! Donating can be done in different ways. read HERE† Thank you!
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