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How they do it in the Netherlands

bruto

Penultimate Amazing
bruto
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Jun 7, 2005
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Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
After all the brouhaha in Washington, I was amused to see a little item in the news about how they do it in The Netherlands.

It seems that in a massive bureaucratic messup, they wrongly assessed penalties on about ten thousand poor and immigrant families for welfare fraud which turned out to be untrue. So did they double down on the lies, blame it on someone else, send in the troops, hunker in their bunkers? No, they resigned. The prime minister went personally to the King to tender his resignation...on his bicycle.
 
Well yes, BUT they did try to cover up the fact about the massive bureaucratic errors for years hoping the people who were affected would give up.
So it's not all as rosy at it seems.

There is also the fact that we were going have elections in two months anyway so it's not like there will be much consequences. Speaking of, we'll probably start getting election flyers at some point soon.
 
If the government resigns, doesn't that mean that the country is left in the hands of the very same bureaucracy that screwed up in the first place, until a new government is formed?
 
theprestige said:
If the government resigns, doesn't that mean that the country is left in the hands of the very same bureaucracy that screwed up in the first place, until a new government is formed?
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No, the resigned ministers stay in place as a caretaker government until new elections are held, but are constrained by a lot.
Any truly important decisions need to ratified by parliament, but day to day decisions can still be made.
That prevents a dismissed government from pushing trough pet projects or major legislation before the new government takes over.

I know it's shocking, but most European nations have similar laws to prevent an outgoing government from sabotaging the incoming one.
 
As an addendum, it's unlikely the main governing parties will feel the backlash all this much.
The center-right party that's been in every government for decades whose PM this is has as main rivals two populist parties that mainly run on an 'immigrants are bad' platform.
Given that the main victims of the scandal were immigrants they are not in the best position to capitalize on this.
 
theprestige said:
Ah, so it's more of a less work, same pay situation?
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Given how much work running a country is, I doubt that. It just prevents vindictive losers from burning down the country during the transition process.

And certain current events show how valuable such precautions are in my opinion.
 
psionl0 said:
I don't know about that. It seems to me that comparing Boris Johnson to Donald Trump is like comparing a minor scratch to a gaping wound.
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I was actually comparing Johnson to the Dutch PM. Can you see Johnson doing anything on a point of honour, or admitting a mistake?
 
zooterkin said:
Nor Boris Johnson.
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psionl0 said:
I don't know about that. It seems to me that comparing Boris Johnson to Donald Trump is like comparing a minor scratch to a gaping wound.
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This.

And besides, when it comes to leaving gracefully when shown the door vs hanging on for dear life until your minders drag you out kicking and screaming, I don't think we've reason to think Boris Johnson is necessarily the latter type. He could be, but we don't know that, yet.

As far as leaving readily, take David Cameron. I guess many in your country loathe the man, as having been the architect of the whole (probably entirely unnecessary) Brexit mess, and what's more many could see his resigning when he did as callously dumping his own mess on to others, as cowardice, whatever: but at least he wasn't Trumpian in terms of refusing to leave despite being kicked, repeatedly and hard, on the backside. Exactly the opposite, in fact, as far as specifically that part.

If that kind of thing's a virtue, I guess Boris Johnson is better than Trump.

(That's a lot of reasoning to arrive at a truism, I realize. I suppose it's safe to say, without needing any detailed reasoning, that practically anyone at all is better than Trump.)
 
zooterkin said:
I was actually comparing Johnson to the Dutch PM. Can you see Johnson doing anything on a point of honour, or admitting a mistake?
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Boris might not compare well to the Dutch PM but to drag him into the same category as the Hair (as you did) is equivalent to asserting that there is no difference between describing the Earth as flat or as spherical because both descriptions are wrong.
 
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