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Wot - centrist/progressive party makes huge gains at the expense nasty populists? Imagine if that becomes a thing....

To an extent, what happened was that parties who were in the coalition government lost seats to ideologically similar parties who were not. So, the PVV (hard right populists) lost 11 seats, but 2 similar parties gained seats: Ja21 up 8, FvD up 4. The NSC were wiped out, losing 20, but the CDA were up 13. The NSC began as a CDA split.

D66 did great (+17), but their gains were partly from the left (GL/PvdA -5, SP -2, Volt -1). So, maybe half the D66 gains were from the NSC collapse?

The hard right vote was similar in size, but splintered, while the centrist-progressives made some gains from the centre-right and centre-left.

Up with Norwegian and Welsh, Dutch must be one of the most pointless languages to learn, since almost all native speakers have far greater English proficiency than you would ever achieve in their own language. And with Dutch it does sadly sound as if you have a public hair stuck in your throat.

As a bet, backing the Dutch Libs would clearly have been a cracking one. The odds were long, of course, because no-one saw it coming.

Maybe Ed Davey will succeed where Jo Swinson failed??

I consider myself a German speaker and it has crushed my soul that every time I start speaking German to a German, they start replying to me in English by saying ‘Ah, you are English.’

I remember that happening when I was speaking to our French lawyers for an arbitration we were doing in Paris. Every time I would ask for the person I wanted to speak to in my best schoolboy French and every time the receptionist would reply in flawless English. It was indeed crushing.

I used to be an excellent French speaker, these days I sound like Officer Crabtree from 'Allo 'Allo.

" 'Allo 'Allo", was from a lighter time when we laughed at Nazis rather than voted for them.

Wot - centrist/progressive party makes huge gains at the expense nasty populists? Imagine if that becomes a thing....

Good morning

And our conservative candidate beat reform in out local ward election last night

Won 60% of votes gaining it from Reform

From small acorns large oak trees grow

I suppose it's conceivable that the doubts about Reform's potential for serious harm might persuade right of centre voters to hold their noses & vote Conservative in this country. Not so much a resurgence of popularity as a least bad option. Or vain hope that they might tackle the problems that right of centre people perceive as serious.

Not just right of center people, Anne. Maybe one day all voters will start supporting candidates who are addressing the very real problems we face with realistic policies.

We live in hope,

Up with Norwegian and Welsh, Dutch must be one of the most pointless languages to learn, since almost all native speakers have far greater English proficiency than you would ever achieve in their own language. And with Dutch it does sadly sound as if you have a public hair stuck in your throat.

As a bet, backing the Dutch Libs would clearly have been a cracking one. The odds were long, of course, because no-one saw it coming.

Maybe Ed Davey will succeed where Jo Swinson failed??

I consider myself a German speaker and it has crushed my soul that every time I start speaking German to a German, they start replying to me in English by saying ‘Ah, you are English.’

I remember that happening when I was speaking to our French lawyers for an arbitration we were doing in Paris. Every time I would ask for the person I wanted to speak to in my best schoolboy French and every time the receptionist would reply in flawless English. It was indeed crushing.

It is a great deal better to be making the effort, rather than to begin by saying Do you speak English?

That's true. My French is definitely 'schoolboy' but I find it scores brownie points with the locals. They appreciate the effort being made.

Conversely, Mrs PtP speaks the language perfectly but with a Montreal accent. They can be a bit sniffy about that.

Up with Norwegian and Welsh, Dutch must be one of the most pointless languages to learn, since almost all native speakers have far greater English proficiency than you would ever achieve in their own language. And with Dutch it does sadly sound as if you have a public hair stuck in your throat.

As a bet, backing the Dutch Libs would clearly have been a cracking one. The odds were long, of course, because no-one saw it coming.

Maybe Ed Davey will succeed where Jo Swinson failed??

I consider myself a German speaker and it has crushed my soul that every time I start speaking German to a German, they start replying to me in English by saying ‘Ah, you are English.’

The problem with Germans is that many of them actually prefer to speak English rather than German, or some sort of weird Wenglish-style hybrid, even among themselves.

For some reason, 'kann sie think outside the box' is one of their favourite management cliches, at any rate in education, and they always say it in a mix of German and English like that.

Even though 'kann sie Aus den kisten denken' sounds a hell of a lot nicer.

"they always say it in a mix of German and English"

Do I detect a certain schadenfreude?