Hope from The Hague: What Rob Jetten’s victory means for liberals everywhere

Today, in the Netherlands, something quietly historic has happened.

Rob Jetten, leader of Democrats 66, has become Prime Minister. The youngest ever (at 38) and the first openly gay person to hold the office.

Pause on that.

In a European political landscape where we are so often told that the future belongs to the angry, the polarising and the populist, the Dutch electorate has chosen something else. They have chosen the broad, confident Centre.

They have chosen liberalism.

For we Liberal Democrats, there is real encouraging here. Yes it’s a different country with a different system, but for years we have been told that the political space we occupy, pro-European, socially liberal, economically responsible, internationalist, reformist, is too nuanced for an age of social media outrage. That politics is now a battle between hard-Right nationalism and hard-Left statism.

Yet in the Netherlands, the voters have rejected that binary.

D66 under Jetten did not try to out-shout the populists. They did not mimic the rhetoric of grievance. They did not tack to the extremes. Instead, they argued that freedom and fairness are not opposing forces but mutually reinforcing ones. They made the case for climate action rooted in economic opportunity. For social equality grounded in human dignity. For Europe not as an abstract project, but as practical cooperation in an uncertain world.

And they won. Albeit that they will head up a minority coalition…but that is also adult politics, having to work with others to progress their agenda.

Let’s be clear: the Netherlands, like Britain, has seen its share of populist insurgency, from the hard-Right to the radical fringes of the Left. The temptation for centrist parties in such an environment is to drift, to triangulate, to water down their convictions in the hope of appeasing louder voices.

Jetten did the opposite.

He demonstrated that authenticity beats mimicry. That voters can respect clarity even when they do not agree with every detail. And that there is still a substantial constituency for a politics that is calm, competent and values-led.

There is also something profoundly moving about the symbolism.

An openly gay Prime Minister, not as a novelty, not as a protest candidate, but as the chosen leader of a major European democracy.

For those of us who remember when coming out in politics was career suicide, that matters. It sends a message to young LGBT+ people across the continent that leadership is not closed to them. That they need not shrink themselves to fit outdated expectations.

Indeed Rob and his partner Nicolas have been as naturally public as any other political couple, as is entirely right,

Representation is not everything, But it is also not nothing. It matters.

For the Liberal Democrats, the lesson is not that we simply copy D66. Context matters. Electoral systems matter. National cultures matter.

The lesson is this: the Centre is not dead unless we abandon it.

If we are bold enough to articulate liberal values with confidence, if we make the case for an open society, for community politics, for international cooperation, for evidence-based reform, then we need not accept the false choice between two forms of populism.

Rob Jetten’s premiership is not just a Dutch story. It is a reminder.

The broad Centre can win.

And when it does, it changes history.

How many more must die before Wes Streeting fixes the ambulance crisis?

A 97-year old woman was found dead on the floor of her home after reportedly being told she could face a ten-day wait for an ambulance, a coroner has heard.

Ten days. Let that sink in.

An elderly woman, believed to have suffered a suspected hip fracture, left without urgent help in one of the richest countries in the world. This is not just a service under pressure; it is a system in moral distress.

And for me, it is painfully personal. Almost four years ago, in July 2022, my beloved mum died two days after waiting eleven hours for an ambulance after a fall at home. That made news headlines across the country and around the world, We were told lessons would be learned. We were told it must never happen again.

Yet here we are.

The excuses are well-rehearsed: handover delays, bed shortages, social care backlogs. All true. But they are explanations, not solutions. The job of the Health Secretary is not to diagnose the crisis, we all know there is one, but to fix it.

So while the Westminster chatter turns again and again to Mr Streeting’s leadership ambitions and positioning, patients are still lying on floors waiting hours, sometimes days, for an ambulance, and families like mine are left devastated.

So, Mr Streeting, when does the focus shift from the next rung on the political ladder to the job you already have?

She would have been 82 today

Speaking of my wonderful mum, she would have been 82 today.

Not a day goes by when I don’t feel her influence in my life. More than anyone else, she made me who I am. My sense of fairness, that instinct to stand up and speak out when something isn’t right, came from her. So too did the belief that people matter more than pride, and kindness counts more than status.

She had the warmest smile, the gentlest way with people, and a capacity for care that seemed almost limitless. Her love was steady, practical, and unconditional.

Everything I try to be, honest, open, and decent, began with her.

Happy Birthday, Mum. I love and miss you.

* Mathew Hulbert is a former Councillor, is a regular commentator on TV and Radio, and is Co-Host of the Political Frenemies podcast.