The Dutch will elect a new government in 23 days time and campaigning is well under way. Here’s a round-up of the weekend’s election news.

Healthcare fund

The Socialist Party managed to attract some 6,000 supporters to The Hague on Saturday to demonstrate in favour of a national healthcare fund, which would end competition between insurers and end the €385 excess charge.

Party leader Emil Roemer and Henk Krol of 50Plus were joined for a debate later by Jesse Klaver of GroenLinks and Lodewijk Asscher of the PvdA, both of whom said they could not support the plan. The pro-animal PvdD is the only other party to supports the establishment of a national healthcare fund.

GroenLinks under fire

GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver can be confident he is doing something right – given the party’s surge in the polls. The Telegraaf newspaper this weekend launched a major attack on Klaver, accusing him of making up stories about his difficult upbringing.

In particular, Klaver exaggerated the reluctance of the Catholic church to baptise him, lied about his ‘difficult’ school days and gave the wrong impression about the area he grew up in, the paper said.

Later, Labour’s finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem told website Nu.nl that GroenLinks’s plans for a high speed introduction of new environmental policies would  ‘dislocate’ the economy. Someone forced to commute 80 kilometres a day to get too and from work by car would lose €300 a month in travel allowance if Klaver had his way, Dijsselbloem said.

Moroccan scum

The mass attention for the launch of the PVV election campaign in Spijkenisse on Saturday generated a dozens of headlines about Moroccan scum in the world’s press. The BBC, Guardian, Telegraph and ITV were among those focusing on Wilders’ introductory words in English, as did Deutsche Welle in Germany, The Times of Israel, Russia Today and New York Times.

However, while the foreign press used to refer to Wilders as a potential future prime minister, most papers now referred to the party’s drop in the polls and the fact no other parties are willing to form a coalition with him.