BTW I am using akismet myself for spam fighting. It works wonders, and almost automatically - at least for me (you have more track than I do obviously, that could make a difference). Don’t know if it is implementable on AFOE however.

You could also consider having the letter B bring us the anti-spam measures for a few days…

Just now, while looking for any missing posts by legitimate commenters, I had to delete 200 odd spam comments.

I know our technical crew has already been looking into this and we do apologize if the occasional comment goes missing in action (which, of course, we try to avoid).

There are more foodbanks because the concept was introduced a few years ago, and their number has increased because the idea has caught on - not because the need for foodbanks is greater than it used to be.

PS Guy, I am missing a lengthy comment I wrote yesterday - don’t hope something went wrong when I posted it…

There weren’t any anywhere in the Netherlands 25 years ago.

So much is clear that voters in the Netherlands moved away from the centre, from the diluted christian-democratic, social-democratic and conservative mainstream parties to the non-diluted christian, socialist and anti-immigrant “originals”. As if voters in each of these “pillars” wanted to make a clear statement about their intentions.

One of the comments I read pointed out another trend: what the winning parties have in common is that they all have a “communitarian” or even nationalist streak: the Christian Union with their old-fashioned christian values and their social policies, the Socialist Party with their protectionism, their emphasis on smaller scales in education and health care, and also on values, and even Wilders with his xenophobic Dutch nationalism. Reversely, the losing parties are those that concentrate on individual liberty and self-fulfilment, who see globalisation as an opportunity rather than a threat and have an open view to the world and Europe.

Including the Christian Democrats, conservative-communitarian parties won 19 seats in the general election, which gives them a comfortable majority of 85 seats. Dutch voters are afraid of the world - and they voted for parties telling them they can make it go away.

No, I don’t see the SP becoming a part of the Balkenende government this time. They can afford to sit in opposition and wait for more disgruntled Labour supporters to come their way in order to gain power in the next election. A grand coalition between the CDA and the PvdA will probably be formed that will try to salvage what remains of the so-called “post-war consensus”. I personally have doubts as to whether the ChristenUnie would be susceptible to joining a future government, given its rabid anti-EU stance.

Isn´t it interesting how the term ´neoliberal´* is always bandied about when it comes to economic reforms they don´t know much about themselves but somehow it “must-be-really-bad” because the opposition says so, so they don´t like it either?

P.S
Somehow that ´consensus´ has worked in sharing prosperity. Dutch poverty has actually declined in the last 25 years, just check some recent issues of the ESB in the library Mr. Wisse.

1) On the right, there has been a reshuffling of seats, with the eight seats the LPF had in 2003 joining Geert Wilders’ one seat for a total of nine for his new party, so really the right has gained nothing and in fact lost heavily if you look at the results of the mainstream rightwing parties too, with CDA and VVD both losing seats.

2) But the biggest news of these elections is the swing to the left, with PvdA, SP and GroenLinks, having more seats now together than they did in 2003 which is of course due entirely to the SP, the only one of those three which has been running on a consistent leftwing, socialist platform. The PvdA had been campaigning with too much of an eye of forming a future government and hence being a little bit too centrist and GroenLinks just sinking further into irrelevancy, staying stable or losing slightly for a number of elections now.

Take with this two related developments, the swing of three seats from the CDA to the more leftist appearing ChristenUnie (which is still rabidly rightwing on things like abortus and gay marriage but at least remembers Jesus liked to feed the hungry as well) and the ongoing destruction of left-liberal new politics for forty years D66 and what do you get?

A repudation of the neoliberal consensus that has ruled the Netherlands for the past 25 years in favour of parties that actually, you know, believe the government is capable of making sure all its people share in economic prosperity.

The puzzle now is going to be how this is going to be translated into the new government; just because the SP is the winner of the elections is no guarantee whatsoever that it will end up in government.
The CDA as the biggest party will take the lead and they’re devious and experienced enough to end up with any coalition they like, just as they did in 2003, when they made sure that election’s big winner, the PvdA, would not share power…

The other problem facing the country now is the continuing presence of a large minority of Islamophobic voters and the tensions this causes in society. Though their representatives may change every other election, they won’t go away…

Bondwoman, how does the supposedly unserious attitude of the Dutch voters rhyme with the participation level, which was high in this election as well as in the referendum?