This week the Dutch went to the polls and to much surprise, the Christian Democrats kept most of their seats in the Lower House. The other surprise was that the Socialist Party was officially named winner of this year’s election by winning an extra 17 seats (making it the third largest party), presumably indicative of the mood of the Dutch: while they seem to agree that the country is ‘fairly good off’, most Dutch seem to want to see a more social face to the current government. Interestingly, it appears that either left/right political parties will have a hard time to create a coalition because of the lack of the right amount of seats. 76 is the magic number and as it looks like now, I won’t be surprised if the Christian Democrats are going to (have to) govern with Labour and Socialist parties.
There’s is a discussion going on in Canada about Quebec (there’s always a discussion about Quebec’s special status): this time the Conservative Party will table a motion to give Quebec the status of a nation within Canada. I’m not sure what that means but it sounds more or less like ‘more of the same’. Strictly political.1
Robert Altman died at age 81. I remember a couple of his movies: some of them good, some of them worse. ‘Pret-A-Porter’ is one of them I can’t really place: while I appreciated his effort to shake up the fashion world with a morality play, the movie itself is not overly exciting. If I think of Altman, that last sentence probably explains his whole oeuvre.
1 Excellent commentary courtesy of The Current.