Labour leader Wouter Bos’ lashing out at his party’s main coalition partner the Christian Democrats yesterday came as a shock. The two parties have been hand in glove for some time in their efforts to cope with the effects of the financial crisis.

The friendliness this has encouraged made us forget about the tit-for-tat party politics that is usually the norm.
In a newspaper interview Bos accused the CDA of ignoring the debate on the integration of minorities into Dutch society because the party is ‘terrified of having to talk about religion and criticism of religion’.
The reason for this outburst has nothing to do with any recent incidents involving the CDA but is solely due to the fact that Labour will debate its own new integration strategy at its party congress this weekend.
It is also a bit rich of Bos to lambast the CDA as scaredy-cats when he himself has repeatedly failed to take a firm stance on a several important issues.
What is more, Bos has tried to steer his party away from its usual sympathetic stance on immigration, seeing that as a vote loser at a time when society’s attitude to foreigners has hardened,
This is a shame because as finance minister Bos has excelled in his crusading role to save the financial system and showed great leadership.
What a welcome it would be if he applied the same approach to party politics. Instead, as the CDA pointed out, Bos’ comments on integration are indeed ‘a bit weak’.