Maxime Verhagen has stopped twittering: something’s up in the Hague, senses Bert Wagendorp in the Volkskrant.

Verhagen’s twittering is like an inverted Geiger teller: less tweets are a sign political activity is heating up and more tweets mean nothing much is happening.
Geert has returned from the Big Apple where he has spread the word about Dutch tolerance and explained to the Americans that islamophobia and tolerance can live side by side perfectly amicably. New York hasn’t quite recovered from the arguments he used to prop up his controversial stance.
Fortunately he didn’t go about it in too inflammatory a way. Professional hysteric Pamela Geller, who organised the demonstration, must have been slightly disappointed at his unusually careful choice of words. But then Pam doesn’t know about the Gordian knot that is the formation of a Dutch coalition which only a very careful politician can unravel.
Knot or not, Rutte and Verhagen probably thought that their civilised behaviour was rubbing off on Wilders.
But Wilders mustn’t become too reasonable or Rutte will have to tell him to crank it up a little. After all, he’s working on the perfect rightwing cabinet and if the Big Facilitator starts drinking cups of tea with all and sundry it might spoil the picture.
Let’s have this perfect rightwing cabinet, I say. I feel as if I am in the dentist’s chair waiting for my root canal treatment only the dentist and his assistant keep arguing about the best way to proceed.
Get that drill in there! The sooner we start, the sooner it will all be over. Now negotiator Tjeenk Willink wants to find out if the opposition parties are willing to support ‘other main cabinet policies’.
That means we will be landed with a coalition accord, an accord supported by Wilders and an accord with Labour or D66 for the bits and pieces that Wilders doesn’t want to support.
Explain that to you foreign friends. This way lies political madness and I am seriously considering moving to some enlightened dictatorship provided the climate is sunny.
Fortunately, a member of the Labour party let slip the ‘opposition strategy’ to the Telegraaf . If a chance of ‘undermining the coalition’ should present itself, this will take precedence over ‘consistent, credible action’, the document reads.
Excellent. If we’re getting the perfect rightwing government it is only right that we should get the perfect opposition as well. That way everybody is happy. We can look forward to some interesting democratic times.
This is an unofficial translation