Tag Archives: pvv

Mutual Benefit for learning from each other: My thoughts on the success of our sister parties, and the Liberal International Executive Committee 2025

You know, the Dutch, they are so liberal, they’ve got two liberal parties… And one of them, the one that’s most like us, D66, were the smaller party in a coalition, and then in 2006 they got stuffed. 2%, 3 MPs, they came ninth.… But you know what, just scroll forward to last year at the European elections. Ninth? No. First. First. … There’s a model we can copy. Survival and revival is in our grasp. Have hope. Have belief.

– Speech by Tim Farron, our former leader, on 2015.

Fast forward to 29th October 2025, D66 became the largest party in the Dutch parliament for the first time, with the vote share of 16.9%. No political pundit predicted this happening when the election was called. According to most opinion polls, they were only on 5-6%. D66 was not even invited to the TV debate between the major parties.

Meanwhile, VVD suffered from a setback at the early stage of the election campaign after a mishap of their party leader Dilan Yeşilgöz MP. However they recovered very quickly and retained 22 seats (A loss of only 2), which is quite an achievement considering they had been in the last government with the populist PVV.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Russell
    Really nice piece. Thanks. Comments re Anne Widdecombe are a refreshing change from social media. Those who knew her seemed to really like her. Sorry to hear ab...
  • David Raw
    Agree with Mick Taylor, but would also suggest Count Binface is no mug..... he's an Oxford graduate in classics and classical languages, literatures and linguis...
  • Mick Taylor
    Some posters on here are real killjoys. If Binface were to beat Farage it would end Farage's political career. And let's face it, Binface could hardly be a wors...
  • Jana
    A thought just occurred - maybe Farage was hoping to have no serious competition in this by-election as it always his party activists to canvass extensively whi...
  • David Raw
    When a person living within the historical territory of the Duchy of Cornwall dies without a valid will (i.e. intestate) and with no surviving relatives, their ...