Last weekend was the massive Lowlands festival, attended by some 55,000 music fans in blistering heat. Among those with a ticket were a number of parliamentary hopefuls looking to pick up a few yoof votes.

According to the Volkskrant, D66 leader Alexander Pechtold drew the biggest cheers from the audience. Pity, however, Mona Keijzer, the new leading light of the CDA.

She used her eight minutes to speak about what a wonderful country the Netherlands is and about how its music culture had allowed artists such as Jan Smit and Nick en Simon to flourish. Perhaps not the hippest names to drop and nul points for Mona.

However, the award for red face of the week must go to the Pirate Party, the pro-internet freedom group which inadvertently leaked 800 email addresses to the world at large.

Some hapless Pirate Party worker put the addresses in the cc rather than confidential bcc section of an email to the group’s supporters. Perhaps most shocking about the entire incident is the fact the party only has a mailing list of 800.