Ministers should stop wasting time by calling on people to start spending money in an effort to kickstart the economy, Halbe Zijlstra, leader of the VVD parliamentary party, says in Tuesday’s Telegraaf.

‘Stop this sort of call to action,’ he said. ‘People know damn well the government has spent too much money and as long as nothing is done about this, you can’t expect the Dutch to start spending again.’

Finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem is the latest minister to make such a call. He told magazine Vrij Nederland last week that older generations with considerable assets should ‘spend, invest, give it to your children’.

Prime minister Mark Rutte earlier called on people to ‘buy a house, buy a car’.