Column | Ideological schizophrenia – NRC

It was a humble Mark Rutte, who in four years ago News hour « Radical ideas » came for politics. There were too few major social debates, he said: it was time for the middle parties to collide again. Moreover, there had to be a new management culture, with more transparency and an eye for the human size. That way, citizens could again get faith in politics.

Although I was skeptical about Ruttes plans, which were clearly meant to save his own position, I believed at the time that there was a change in the air. The political dissatisfaction was so great, the shock was like that, something had to happen.

Four years later there is little left of that hope. We have a schizophrenic cabinet, both in terms of ideology and in terms of management culture. The parties indeed clash, as Rutte wanted, but then behind the scenes. It has not yet come from a social debate. In terms of content, the coalition is so incoherent that it is difficult to discuss it. The cabinet is like a dysfunctional family, in which one parent strives for a laissez-fairy education while the other swears by the corrective tap.

The ideological schizophrenia of this cabinet turned out to be the announcement of the Spring Memorandum this week. The social rents are frozen, the housing allowance is increased, but rents in the free sector may rise. What kind of idea is behind that? The answer: no idea. It is an exchange between a liberal and a populist party, with (prospective) tenants outside the social sector as victims. They will pay more, or have less chance of a home – due to the sudden freezing of the rents, which is already starting in July, the housing associations can build fewer houses.

Here you see an underexposed problem of rule with the PVV: that party is not only anti-democratic, but also anti-ideological. Her program consists of gathered views that fall well with the supporters, but contains no overarching idea about where to go with the country and how that should be paid. If such a party negotiates with an economic right -wing party like the VVD, that, as we see, leads to a strange combination of budget discipline and leveling. The Marianne Zwagerman elicited the Telegraph-Column The desperate exclamation: « How much more left -wing will this » right -wing « cabinet be? »

In addition to the ideological, there is the administrative schizophrenia. While NSC is tinkering with administrative renewal in its corner of the cabinet, PVV minister Faber undermines the rule of law in another corner. NSC does not seem to find the latter its own problem. « We dies well, » said Nicolien van Vroonhoven radiantly during the ‘ribbon debate’ two weeks ago. « So we are really on track. » And indeed, NSC minister Judith Uitermark (Home Affairs) is working carefully on a constitutional court, a new electoral system and a law that must record the independence of inspections. As long as we plan and carpentry the rule of law, nothing can happen, they seem to think at NSC.

But good governance is more than administrative reform. It is also (or even) about making good laws and being open to criticism on it. Instead, Marjolein Faber indicated that he would do nothing in advance with the Council of State advice on her asylum laws. The public interest does not interest her, only the PVV interest. (Where I have to emphasize that the PVV interest is slightly different from the importance of PVV voters. It is in the interest of PVV voters that there will be asylum laws that work, instead of asylum laws that worsen the problems.)

Good governance is also about reliability and long -term thinking. This cabinet is not a reliable partner for, for example, municipalities and housing corporations, which live in uncertainty – around the Spreading Act, or are surprised – with the rent freezing. It does not develop a long -term plan for such a big problem as a nitrogen, which means that the farmers are still in uncertainty. It still does not know whether slaughterhouses, greenhouses and distribution centers are or are not an asset to our economy. It will not come out there either, which makes these years a wasted time.

Four years after the « radical plans » for political renewal, we have a dull and indolent cabinet. It likes to present itself as innovative and groundbreaking (hope, guts and pride!), But is actually the opposite. It is everything at the same time (left and right, for and against the rule of law), and therefore not much. What it mainly does is to kill time together until the polls get better. I can tell them: that will not happen this way.

Floor Rusman ([email protected]) is editor of NRC

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