After Thursday night’s marathon sitting, parliament is well and truly out. The next, and last, time the current crop of MPs get together will be on September 18 for the presentation of the outgoing government’s 2013 spending plans – huge chunks of which nobody supports any longer.

It’s been a tough week for Geert Wilders, with two ex-MPs stealing his thunder and leaving the party, washing a great deal of dirty linen in public in the process.

Not that this is likely to affect Wilders’ fortunes too much. His supporters vote for him rather than a party. And the more they have the impression someone is out to get their dear leader, the more the ‘them and us’ position is reinforced.

‘Wilders and friends against the rest’ is a message repeatedly reinforced in the party’s manifesto. Language expert and columnist Jan Kuitenbrouwer has dedicated a whole book to Wilders’ use of words.

Nostalgia

Wilders, he says, is transforming parliamentary language: his use of cosily old-fashioned expressions harking back to the fifties and sixties when the Netherlands was the Netherlands, the one-liners that play on emotion but are rarely backed up by arguments, and his rejection of official political jargon combined with the usual bag of rhetorical tricks familiar to all politicians. 

The PVV has all of the above and a little extra in the shape of italics and accents to drive the message home more forcefully: Hún Brussel, óns Nederland (Their Brussels, our the Netherlands), Uit die fuik (away from the (Brussels) fish-trap).

The images in the manifesto speak a similarly unambiguous language. There’s a close-up of the guilder and its component parts the kwartje, the dubbeltje and the stuiver. The European flag lies crumpled up in what looks like an Ikea waste paper basket. It’s not exactly subtle. But that’s exactly what Wilders is aiming for: unsubtle, direct language. Fancy language is for the elite.

Pink suits

As Kuitenbrouwer points out, apart from being offensive and contemptuous – the kopvoddentaks or ‘head rag tax’ being a prime example – Wilders can be genuinely funny as well.

He writes this about the first chamber which he wants to abolish: ‘It’s all very picturesque and everything but in 2012 no one knows why this national bedchamber is still with us’. 

And how about this, in the our Safety paragraph: ‘We would like to see the chain-gang return to our streets, working diligently in bright pink suits. And because much of the scum is from cultures of shame, that’ll be even more effective’. Hilarious! Oh, hang on…

Home-spun

Meanwhile, politicians’ wives, housekeepers or possibly even the politicians have been getting ready to invite the cameras into their homes. Kids’ drawings on the fridge door, and a jolly, no doubt carefully arranged mess of stuff on the kitchen table is fine for this year’s crop of party political broadcasts.

Labour leader Diederik Samsom’s kitchen looks impeccably Ikea: children’s drawing, check; strange pink spray bottle on the table seemingly unrelated to the activity of breakfasting and so denoting a fine disregard for formalities, check; an enormous fruit bowl to show a fine regard for kids’ health, check; and last but not least the children themselves, double check.

Here is where controversy rears its head. Samsom centres his message on his ten-year-old daughter Benthe who has a handicap. Samsom works for the next generation, including those who may have trouble achieving their goals, is his message. Some have not taken kindly to Samsom using his daughter for political ends and mutter darkly about the Americanisation of the Dutch political system.

All white

Christian Democrat leader Sybrand van Haersma Buma is shown being very Dutch – cycling. The first thing you notice is that he should probably do a bit more. In the next scene Van Haersma Buma, in the crisp white shirt so beloved of advertising people, is making breakfast, alone. His wife and children are still asleep and won’t come down until everything is ready.

When he finally goes to work, probably after having done the washing up, Van Haersma Buma is seen among a whole lot of people who are busy being entrepreneurs etc. They are ‘the people who are building the Netherlands,’ and they need to be supported.

The words ‘together’ and ‘inclusive’ crop up numerous times but among all those entrepreneurs and other busily building people there is not one non-white face to be seen. A big fail for a party whose slogan is ‘Together we can achieve more’.

Catchy

Talking of slogans, the vote is still out on who has come up with the most uncatchy political slogan so far – in Dutch, let alone in translation.

The VVD Liberals published their manifesto on Friday with the catch phrase Niet doorschuiven maar aanpakken which literally means ‘don’t put off things, tackle them now’. This is probably slightly less clumsy than the pro-animal party PvdD with Hou vast aan je idealen, laat ze niet wegcijferen or ‘hold on to your ideals, don’t let them be ignored’.

We await the election posters with interest.

Election Watch is a weekly column compiled by DutchNews.nl writers