The Dutch Conservative Party

The main cause for the fall of the Dutch government was the incessant strife and infighting in the LPF. Two members of parliament actually seceded from the LPF to form their own parliamentary group (I don't exactly remember why), and they've now set up their own party to contest the upcoming general election. It's the Conservative Party, and it does not stand the slightest chance of winning any seats if the current polls are to be believed. So what is a self-styled "conservative" party like in the Netherlands? Their web site has the answer. The translation of the bullet points at the top of the page:

• Back to a safe Netherlands


• Back to law and order in our country


• Back to good health care for everybody who needs it, i.e. tackling waiting lists!


• Back to normal prices for rents and houses


• Back to good education for our children


• Back to clear language!

There's another translation for this: beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.That's the sound of the Truck of State stuck permanently in reverse gear. What a message to convey... you'd think they'd have learnt the lesson of the Bob Dole presidential bid in 1996. Trying to restore the mythical past is not a particularly fruitful tack to take. What I'd like to when these people think the better conditions actually obtained, to which we should return. They're taking the meaning of "conservative" a bit too literally. While I applaud that from a etymological point of view, I don't find it particularly attractive. Although they claim to be in favor of market mechanisms in preference to state intervention, the party program is still mostly a promise to run the welfare state better, rather than a fundamental rejection of the welfare state. Nowhere do they question whether the state should be in the business of providing education and health care. While they complain a lot about the welfare state, they're more than happy to keep supporting and extending it. For instance, they want to reinstate the state benefit to people who can't do their jobs in winter. This is a conservative party? Apparently the talk about personal responsibility elsewhere on their site does not apply here.