As Suriname celebrates 50 years of independence, the spectre of Dutch colonial rule and its role in the slave trade still lingers.

The king and queen of the Netherlands touched down in the small South American country last week: the first visit by the Dutch royal family in 47 years. King Willem-Alexander had vowed before the trip that the topic of slavery, which was formally abolished in Suriname and other Dutch-held territories in 1863, would not be off-limits. “We will not shy away from history, nor from its painful elements, such as slavery,” he said. Building a common future “is only meaningful if we take into account the foundation on which we stand”, he added. “That foundation is our shared past.”

But the shared past remained a source of tension in the present, as the king and queen prepared to meet representatives of slaves’ descendants.

Spoils of slavery

“The Dutch funded their ‘golden age’ of empire and culture in the 16th and 17th centuries by shipping about 600,000 Africans as part of the slave trade,” said The Guardian, “mostly to South America and the Caribbean.”

A study in 2023 found that the Dutch royal family had earned the current equivalent of £475 million between 1675 and 1770 from the colonies, “where slavery was widespread”. The ancestors of the current king were “among the biggest earners” from what the report described as the state’s “deliberate, structural and long-term involvement” in slavery.

Slavery was formally abolished in Suriname and other Dutch-held lands in 1863, and actually ended 10 years later after a “transition” period.

In 2022, then prime minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte officially apologised for the Netherlands’ role in the transatlantic slave trade. The king followed with a royal apology the following year, echoing a similar address in 2003 when he acknowledged the devastation caused by slavery, and how his own family had benefited from what he called humanity’s greatest genocide.

Repercussions and reparations

During the visit, Willem-Alexander said the Netherlands was keen to deepen ties with its former colony “based on equality and mutual respect”.

Representatives of the descendants of African slaves and Indigenous people formally accepted the king’s apology. But the president of Suriname, Jennifer Geerling-Simons, has warned that the legacy of slavery lingers.

Willem-Alexander had previously offered $200 million (£149 million) to raise awareness about that legacy. Now, the king and his delegation are “being reminded” that the grant should not be considered part of a reparations package, said Caribbean Life.

“The losses they have suffered are significant,” said Geerling-Simons, referring to the descendants of slaves. “We’re not going to argue about that now, but this issue of reparations will have to be discussed someday.”

A reparations commission appointed by Caribbean governments deemed the Dutch “the most brutal and calculating of the European nations”, said the news site. The commission said the country had “invented the blueprint for the slave trade”.

The next leader of the Netherlands will break barriers in several ways. Rob Jetten, the head of the center-left Democrats 66 Party, is virtually certain to become the country’s next prime minister after his party won one of the closest elections in Dutch history. The Netherlands’ youngest and first openly gay prime minister will look to carry D66’s electoral victory toward setting a new political agenda. But the razor-thin election margins mean this could be an uphill battle.

A young politician

Jetten, 38, was born in the Dutch town of Veghel in the country’s south. He obtained a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in public administration at the Netherlands’ Radboud University. He first became interested in politics after a “Turkish primary school was set on fire in my hometown,” Jetten said in his profile for the Dutch House of Representatives.

The culprits “ended up being teammates from my football team,” and the “rest of the world cast my village as a hotbed for far-right youths,” Jetten’s profile said. To counter this characterization, Jetten “teamed up with a few peers to prove everyone wrong, organizing various campaigns and speaking before the municipal council.” Jetten “worked as a manager at the ProRail national track network before going into politics,” said The Guardian. He was first elected to the House in 2017 and has held several government positions, including minister for climate and energy policy and first deputy prime minister.

Next prime minister

As the leader of D66, Jetten is expected to become the next prime minister, as D66 defeated the far-right Party for Freedom and its leader, Geert Wilders. The contest was a “nail-biter,” and the difference in the election “came down to postal votes from Dutch citizens living abroad,” said The Associated Press. But the parties will remain neck-and-neck in parliament, as the “28,000 vote advantage for D66 was not enough for the party to pick up an additional legislator.”

Jetten seemingly commanded the race because his “smile and cheerful message resonated with voters, while his rivals sometimes struggled,” said BBC News. He conveyed a “positive message summed up by the slogan Het kan wel,” which roughly translates to former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan, “Yes we can.” Jetten “contrasted strongly with Wilders, whom he accused of ‘sowing division.’”

Immigration has been a sticking point of the last few Dutch elections, and to “combat illegal immigration and discourage dangerous migrant journeys, Jetten has proposed asylum applications to the Netherlands be submitted from outside the EU,” said Reuters. His government policy would aim to ensure people who “really are fleeing from war and violence are received in a decent way, learn the language and can participate [in society] and that the rotten apples are pulled out of the system and are deported.”

Jetten has also promoted ways to address the Netherlands’ housing shortage and has “suggested cutting red tape to enable the construction of 100,000 new homes,” said Reuters. But first a government has to be formed. This may not be easy because the “fragmented nature of Dutch politics means no party wins enough seats in the 150-member parliament to form an absolute majority,” said France24. Upcoming talks to form a coalition are “expected to be lengthy and arduous.”

Elections this week in Ireland and the Netherlands were disrupted by AI deepfakes as the post-truth future that experts have long warned about came one step closer.

Newly elected Irish President Catherine Connolly survived a doctored video showing her supposed withdrawal from the election on the eve of voting, while Dutch firebrand Geert Wilders was forced to apologise for a fabricated video distributed by two of his party’s MPs depicting centre-left opponent Frans Timmermans being arrested.

Since deepfakes first emerged in 2017 as “incel-produced nonconsensual porn”, concerns have “snowballed into panic” when their political consequences became apparent, said The Guardian. AI “slopaganda” is here to stay and promises to influence our lives “for better or for worse”.

What did the commentators say?

“AI-generated content is being deployed to sway minds,” said Politico. Fake content in the recent Irish and Dutch elections “exposed significant gaps” in structural efforts to ensure accuracy and to prevent the exploitation of the electorate.

Some voters “may have been surprised” to see Connolly’s name on the ballot sheet after a video appeared that said: “I announce the withdrawal of my candidacy and the ending of my campaign”. It included convincing material with two well-known TV presenters discussing the implications of the removal of a fake bulletin on national broadcaster RTÉ.

In the Netherlands, AI fakes “overshadowed” what was a pivotal election, where the “plethora” of minority parties means “finding a majority will not be easy”, said Channel 4 News. The landscape is ripe for exploiting division. Voters are “tired of the constant mudslinging” and “tit-for-tat” debates.

Only a week before, the Dutch data regulator had expressly warned voters against using AI chatbots to inform their decision, saying online platforms issue “unreliable advice and push them towards two major parties on opposite ends of the political spectrum”, said Reuters.

This is not just a Dutch problem. Advances in technology have made it easier than ever for individuals to create election-altering fake videos, said Abbas Yazdinejad and Jude Kong on The Conversation. The rapidly evolving landscape is bursting with videos that are “shockingly simple to create and near‑impossible to detect”. The implications are stark and require urgent intervention. The “myriad” disinformation threats could “erode public trust” and spell the end of conventional political election contests.

We’re at an uncomfortable crossroads. With electorates becoming increasingly drawn to short-form video content, voters are caught between online platforms that are “not foolproof” and accelerating technology that “continues to improve”, said EU Observer.

Deepfakes by “bad actors, political parties and candidates themselves” have become a “feature” of global politics. There has been plenty of commentary warning voters of deepfake imagery, but only recently are we seeing it slip consistently into election campaigns and criticism.

What next?

The Irish presidential election may be “small potatoes” compared to other elections around the world, said Futurism. However, the lack of regulation twinned with greater reliance on AI to sift through information in this election emits a “glaring signal” to Meta and other social media companies that electorates are “incredibly vulnerable” to “malicious interference”.

Going forward, legal particulars need to become more defined and easier to implement, said Politico. Though there is no legal framework on digital likeness rights that is EU-enforced, there is an EU-specific law regarding “labelling” artificial intelligence, which could be a “big part of the response”.

Next month, Brussels is due to put forward an initiative concerned with “upholding the fairness and integrity of election campaigns against foreign manipulation and interference”. However, this is not expected to contain “any binding legal requirements”.

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What happened

The center-left Democrats 66 party appeared to be the winner of Wednesday’s national elections in the Netherlands. D66 was essentially tied with anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), with 99% of votes tallied by Thursday morning. But since other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with Wilders, D66’s Rob Jetten is favored to become the youngest Dutch prime minister since World War II and the country’s first openly gay leader.

Who said what

D66 and PVV are each projected to win 26 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, a loss of 11 for the PVV and a gain of 17 for D66. “Wilders led his party to a stunning first-place finish in the last election in 2023,” Reuters said, but his “all-conservative coalition” partners blocked him from becoming prime minister and “he brought the government down in June over its refusal to adopt his hardline measures.”

“Millions of Dutch people today chose positive forces and a politics where we can look forward together again,” Jetten, 38, told cheering supporters last night. A victory by the “fervently pro-European” Jetten over the anti-EU populist Wilders would “surely go down as one of the best days Europe’s centrists have enjoyed in years,” Politico said.

What next?

“By excluding the PVV, it will now fall to parties in the political center to work together to get the majority needed to form a government,” The New York Times said. Jetten said he wanted to form a “stable and ambitious” government. But “building stable coalitions is tough,” Reuters said, “and talks are expected to take months.”

Why have social media platforms become so polarised? And, can they ever be fixed? These two questions are at the heart of a novel experiment at the University of Amsterdam.

The researchers simulated a social media platform, populated it entirely with AI chatbots and then kept tweaking it to see what happened. Sadly, their findings offered little suggestion that the networks on which we spend so much time scrolling will become more pleasant anytime soon.

'Dysfunctional effects'

To see if they could prevent their simulated platform from "turning into a polarised hellscape", the experts tried "six specific intervention strategies", said Futurism. These included "switching to chronological news feeds, boosting diverse viewpoints, hiding social statistics like follower counts, and removing account bios".

But, disappointingly, only some of the six strategies "showed modest effects" and others actually "made the situation even worse", said Ars Technica. When they ordered the news feed chronologically, "attention inequality" was reduced, but it led to the "amplification of extreme content". Boosting the diversity of viewpoints to "broaden users' exposure to opposing political views" had no significant impact at all.

The strategy of "bridging algorithms to elevate content that fosters mutual understanding rather than emotional provocation" significantly diminished the link between "partisanship and engagement" but slightly enhanced "viewpoint diversity", while also expanding "attention inequality".

Overall, the results were "far from encouraging" and none of the methods implemented was able to "fully disrupt the fundamental mechanisms producing the dysfunctional effects" of social media platforms.

'Evil things'

The researchers went into the project wondering whether the problems with social media are "the platforms doing evil things with algorithms" or users "choosing that we want a bad environment", one of the report's co-authors, Petter Törnberg, told Ars Technica.

But they found that the answer doesn't have to be either because "often the unintended outcomes" come from interactions "based on underlying rules". It’s "not necessarily because the platforms are evil" or because people "want to be in toxic, horrible environments", but more that the "mechanism producing these problematic outcomes is really robust and hard to resolve". It comes down to the basic structure of the platforms.

The findings "don’t exactly speak well" of humans, said Gizmodo, considering the chatbots were meant to clone how we interact. So, it seems social media may just be illogical for us to "navigate without reinforcing our worst instincts and behaviours".

It's "a fun house mirror for humanity" that "reflects us, but in the most distorted of ways". And it might just be that there are no lenses "strong enough" to "correct how we see each other online".

What happened

The Dutch coalition government collapsed Tuesday after far-fight leader Geert Wilders withdrew his Party for Freedom's ministers from Prime Minister Dick Schoof's Cabinet. Wilders claimed that the coalition's other three parties were stymieing his hardline anti-immigration measures.

Who said what

Wilders' departure ended the "rocky 11-month rule by the country's first far-right government" and highlights how immigration "continues to roil European politics," said The New York Times. Schoof, a career civil servant tapped by Wilders to be prime minister, called the decision to sink the government "unnecessary and irresponsible."

The coalition always "seemed a marriage of convenience," complete with "infighting," and an "emboldened" Wilders said Tuesday he intends to become prime minister, the BBC said. The "far right and Green-left parties are neck-and-neck" in polls, but Wilders' decision to "collapse the government is being seen as reckless" and may scare away future coalition partners.

What next?

The Schoof administration will go "down in history as one of the shortest-lived governments in Dutch political history," The Associated Press said. The remaining ministers "will run a caretaker administration until new elections can be organized," probably in the fall.

You might assume that the 40 metre-high dome in the Dutch city of Haarlem is a religious building, said The Guardian – "until you notice the bars covering its 230 windows".

The Haarlem Koepelgevangenis ("dome prison") is just one of three so-called panopticons in the Netherlands: circular prisons with a central watch tower, built in the 19th century and designed to oppress inmates. All three have been closed in the past decade, as part of the country's drive to reduce its prison population, and are being "repurposed".

Psychological terror

The panopticon, first envisioned by British philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham in the 1700s, is a circular structure with a domed roof and cells arranged in tiers on the circumference. From the centre, guards can observe all the inmates.

The design "aimed to instill psychological terror" in prisoners, said Semafor. The giant circle of cells, with the guard tower in the centre, "made prisoners feel constantly watched", whether they were or not.

Bentham himself saw the panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind", and believed this "simple idea in architecture" could reform morals and improve health. He thought the design would work in other institutional settings, including schools, hospitals and factories.

The idea was that constant central inspection would "cause the prisoners to learn to love their work", Tim Causer, a principal research fellow at UCL's Bentham Project, told The Guardian. "But the psychological terror of thinking you're being watched at all times, I imagine, would never leave you."

No panopticons were ever built in the UK. But the Netherlands emerged as the "unwitting 'heartland' of panopticon design", said The Guardian. The three structures in Haarlem, Breda and Arnhem were designed in the 1880s by Dutch architect Johan Frederik Metzelaar and his son Willem Cornelis, who "praised Bentham's design for restricting interactions between prisoners, who were in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day".

In the 1970s, the French philosopher Michel Foucault criticised the panopticon as inducing in prisoners "a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power". In his 1975 book "Discipline and Punish", he used the panopticon as an example of how societies used discipline to oppress citizens.

Cultural hub

Koepelgevangenis Haarlem, opened in 1899, finally closed to inmates in 2016. The city then briefly used the prison as a shelter space for Syrian refugees, while the government attempted to sell it. But the "bleak design, dark atmosphere and staggering heating costs" made the building "unappealing", said The Guardian.

In 2022, however, following a "grassroots initiative led by the local population", it reopened as a cultural hub and community space. Nearly all the cells are rented; there is a "podcast studio, art school ateliers and gallery spaces", with a cinema bar and a café on the ground floor. The refurbishment has "generated hundreds of jobs", and up to 1,500 people visit the building every day.

Amazon rents a space on the third floor, where cells have been converted into office spaces. The Amazon Web Service logo is "plastered just above the cell numbers", said Business Insider. Many social media users "noted the irony" of Amazon renting an office in a former prison, given the "widespread reporting" of allegations that Amazon warehouse workers and delivery drivers are "overworked, oversurveilled and underpaid".

The Haarlem site also includes student accommodation and social housing, said Positive News, "answering a national shortage of both".

Arnhem's panopticon is currently undergoing reconstruction to turn it into an event space and hotel, and Breda's domed prison is set to reopen in 2028 as an exhibition space for audio-visual projects.

They are among more than 20 Dutch prisons to have closed in the past decade, as the country's prison population has fallen by more than 40% over the past 20 years. The incarceration rate per capita in the Netherlands is now half that of the UK, and there are "far fewer" repeat offenders. "At times, the Netherlands has even resorted to importing convicts from abroad to fill its empty cells and keep some prisons open."

A massive trove of historic World War II documents has been unveiled, and it strikes at the heart of a generational issue in the Netherlands. On Jan. 2, the Dutch Central Archives of the Special Jurisdiction was publicly opened under the country's national archive rules. This archive contains information about 425,000 Dutch people who were accused of collaborating with the Nazis during the second world war.

These archives have been available to researchers for the past 70 years, but this marks the first time that members of the public can view their contents. It is estimated that the full portfolio of the Central Archives will be digitally accessible by 2027, according to the archive's website; for now, those wishing to see the documents must visit the physical archive in The Hague. Some descendants of those accused of Nazi collaboration say they are wary of what this public access might mean.

What do these archives contain?

The archive's pages measure about 2.3 miles long and are the "largest and most frequently consulted World War II archives in the Netherlands," said a press report. The pages contain "files about individuals suspected of collaboration with the German occupiers" during World War II, as well as information on "victims, resistance activities, hiding operations and much more."

The 32 million documents include information on Dutch people who were both tried as Nazi collaborators and those who were only suspected of such. This is what largely separates the Dutch archives from similar databases in other European countries. The "entire archive has been preserved, including people who were not convicted, only accused," Tom de Smet, the director of Archives, Services and Innovation at the Dutch National Archives, said to The New York Times. Once the files are digitized online, people will be "able to type in the name of a victim and discover who was accused of betraying them."

How are the Dutch responding?

Some descendants of the accused, as well as the Dutch government, are reportedly concerned over the publication of family histories, especially for those who were only accused. According to the Central Archives, only about a fifth of the people accused of collaboration were ever charged in court.

It is "a bit uncomfortable," Connie, whose family is in the archive, said to The Guardian. She does not "know what could come out of it eventually, if people Google our surname." But others believe that publicizing the archives will help the Netherlands heal from its connection with the Holocaust. The country is "only now coming to terms with" its role in the genocide, said The Guardian.

It is "part of the repression by the Dutch of their memories of collaboration, after we had punished our military and political collaborators," Johannes Houwink ten Cate, an emeritus professor of Holocaust studies at Amsterdam University, said to The Guardian. It is easy to "understand the children and grandchildren of collaborators now fear possible consequences, but my personal experience is that their feelings come to rest once they have seen the files. Making this open is an important step."

Officials are also taking steps to "digitize the files more carefully and slowly, because this is very sensitive for relatives of collaborators," according to Dutch newspaper Trouw. The archive will digitize the most well-known files first, including "more serious cases such as the betrayal of several people in hiding or the murder of resistance fighters, which made the newspapers." Archivists "arrived at this after discussions with the ethical council, which includes relatives of both collaborators and war victims," Edwin Klijn, the leader of the project, said to Trouw.

What happened

Dutch police broke up a banned protest in central Amsterdam and detained more than 50 people Sunday amid fallout from what Israeli and Dutch authorities called "antisemitic attacks" on Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans Thursday and Friday morning. Amsterdam's municipal government prohibited all public assembly on Friday and extended the ban through Thursday as Israel warned its citizens to "categorically avoid" sports and cultural events abroad, saying "preparations to harm Israelis have been identified in several European cities."

Who said what

Five people were treated at hospitals after last week's violence and more than 60 people were arrested on suspicion of participating in what Amsterdam's mayor called "hit and run" attacks on the Israeli soccer fans. Police said gangs of youths, many on scooters, chased Maccabi fans and pelted them with fireworks, "apparently inspired by calls on social media to target Jewish people," The Associated Press said.

Police also said "Maccabi supporters pulled a Palestinian flag from a building," burned a second Palestinian flag and "vandalized a taxi" in the 24 hours before the match, The Wall Street Journal said. "Videos circulated on social media of Maccabi fans chanting anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian slogans." People at yesterday's banned demonstration told the BBC they were gathering to protest Israel's war in Gaza and also the Israeli soccer "hooligans." Amsterdam police said anti-Jewish incidents continued through the weekend.

What next?

Paris police said Sunday that 4,000 officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be on duty Thursday to ensure security at a France-Israel match at the Stade de France stadium. President Emmanuel Macron will attend, in a show of "fraternity and solidarity following the intolerable antisemitic acts that followed the match in Amsterdam," a French government official said.

Israeli football fans were attacked in a "pogrom" in Amsterdam last night, raising fears for citizens' safety abroad amid a global rise in antisemitism and outrage over the devastation of Gaza.

Five people were taken to hospital with injuries after riots "erupted" in the Dutch capital following a match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv, said The Guardian. Police said they were investigating reports of a "possible hostage situation and of missing persons", and that 62 people had been arrested so far.

The prime minister, Dick Schoof, condemned the "antisemitic attacks", adding that "the perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted". The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, described the violence as an "antisemitic pogrom" against Israeli citizens, taking place two days before the anniversary of one of the worst Nazi pogroms against Jews: Kristallnacht.

'It looked like a war zone'

"The match was fraught from the start," said Politico.

Amsterdam's mayor, Femke Halsema, originally sought to prevent trouble by moving a planned pro-Palestine protest away from the Johan Cruyff Arena. Dutch authorities said a large group then tried to march to the stadium and were blocked by riot police who arrested more than 50 people.

The hours before the match were "very turbulent", according to a statement by Amsterdam's municipality; there were several incidents of violence against Maccabi supporters.

Videos circulating on social media also show "dozens of men" in Maccabi scarves gathering in Amsterdam's central Dam Square before the match, lighting flares amid a "heavy police presence", said The New York Times. Later, some were heard "using expletives in an anti-Arab chant in Hebrew".

Videos also showed Israeli fans "tearing down Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Arab slogans" before the match, said Sky News' Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall. Maccabi supporters reportedly booed in the stadium during a minute's silence for victims of the floods in Spain.

After the match, things quickly turned "extremely ugly". Israelis were "chased, beaten and kicked on the floor". Some videos appear to show fans being "forced to show their passports". The violence "resurfaces the worst memories of antisemitism in Europe", especially considering the timing of the Kristallnacht anniversary.

Hundreds of Maccabi fans were "ambushed for hours", the Netherlands' Israeli embassy said in a statement. "Mobs chanted anti-Israel slogans and proudly shared videos of their violent acts on social media – kicking, beating, even running over Israeli citizens."

The head of the country's Central Jewish Committee also accused taxi drivers of helping to "whip up the violence", said the BBC. "They moved in groups and cornered their targets," said Chanan Hertzberger.

"We don't feel safe," one Israeli told Dutch state broadcaster NOS. "You come to the game to have fun, but I can't believe what happened here. I come here for a holiday, but it looked like a war zone."

'A blaring alarm call for Europe and the world'

Maccabi Tel Aviv was forced to warn its fans not to show Israeli or Jewish symbols outside, and to fly back to Israel as soon as they could. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled plans to send two military planes, after deeming it no longer necessary, but Israeli airline El Al said it was operating two rescue flights to Amsterdam to bring passengers back to Israel free of charge, having been granted permission to fly on Shabbat.

Dutch authorities said extra police would patrol Amsterdam, which has a large Jewish community, in the coming days and security will be "beefed up" at Jewish institutions and memorials such as Anne Frank's house, said The Independent.

Israel's new foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, is travelling to the Netherlands for an "urgent diplomatic visit", according to Israeli media. He has called the attack "a blaring alarm call for Europe and the world".

"Freedom-loving countries, democracies, cannot allow unbridled hatred to roam the streets with impunity," he said. "As history has shown – what begins with persecution and violence against Jews never ends with the Jews."

What happened

Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is set to become the next secretary general of NATO after his lone challenger, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, dropped his bid Thursday.

Who said what

Securing the support of all 32 NATO members "took a very long time," but "it's an honor that it appears to have happened," Rutte said. Romania, the last holdout, endorsed Rutte's candidacy after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán dropped his opposition Tuesday.

Iohannas joined the race to lead NATO amid grumbling from Central and Eastern European members about the prospect of yet another Western European leader when the alliance's biggest crisis was Russia's Ukraine war, on NATO's eastern flank. Rutte, who spent 14 years as Dutch prime minister, "is known for his pragmatism, his skill for building coalitions and his staunch transatlantic views," Politico said. He has been "so adept at preventing political stains sticking to him that he earned the nickname Teflon Mark," The Associated Press said.

What next?

NATO ambassadors are expected to formalize Rutte's selection within days, before a July 9-11 summit in Washington, D.C. He would take over from outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in October. 

 A proposed law which would allow sex workers to operate from their homes has met with a mixed reception from Dutch councils.

Sex work has been legal in licensed premises in the Netherlands since 2000, but traditional brothels are "increasingly being replaced by sex workers booking clients online and seeing them at their home", said The Telegraph.  

A number of Dutch cities, including Rotterdam, Utrecht and Tilburg, already issue licences for individual operators to work from their own homes. But many of the 150 municipalities surveyed by NOS, the Netherlands' largest news organisation, believed legalisation of at-home sex work on a national level would be a "nuisance" for their communities.

One town argued that it would lead to traffic congestion, disturbances in the streets, and "people in the area feeling less safe", reported Dutch News. 

Shifting sex work into the private sphere would also make it difficult to "gain insight into possible abuses", the municipality of Kaag en Braassem told NOS.

However, the city of Tilburg said that unlicensed sex workers forced to operate underground "become more vulnerable to coercion, violence and blackmail".

Local authorities who currently permit at-home sex work specify that the licensee "must live at the address and work completely independently", said Sky News. Other municipalities impose additional conditions, such as limits on proximity to schools.

To obtain a licence under the proposed nationwide legislation, applicants would need to demonstrate that they are "over 21, working independently and not under duress", said Dutch News.

The proposal was introduced by Prime Minister Mark Rutte's cabinet, but has been left in limbo since the coalition collapsed in July. Talks to form a new government have been ongoing since the federal elections in November, and there is currently no date set for the legislation to go before parliament.

Four years on from the first UK lockdown, and almost a year since the World Health Organization declared an end to the Covid-19 emergency, many people are still feeling the effects of the pandemic.

A survey by YouGov last week found that 44% of Britons feel the pandemic is "still ongoing". Some remain traumatised by the Covid crisis, while others are nostalgic for aspects of it – but what unites them is that they've yet to get over the experience.

What did the commentators say?

Lockdown was a "glorious 18-month holiday", said Giles Coren in The Times. We "got to bunk school, hunker down with our families, read books, learn languages, cook food, avoid foreign travel, dodge most social interaction" and go for "nice long walks in the park".

Fellow Times columnist Harriet Walker also admitted to a touch of "lockdown nostalgia", writing that "for many people, the enforced planlessness of lockdown was actually quite nice".

They are not alone. "Gen Z TikTok users from the US and the UK have reminisced about how much they are missing this period of their lives," said the Daily Mail last year. Some described the quarantine period as "their 'best year ever', and a 'well-deserved break'".

One TikToker said: "The way we took quarantine for granted makes me want to cry. There's literally nothing I miss more than beginning of 2020."

But many other people recall it less fondly. A study published last year in the Netherlands found that half of the PTSD cases being treated were related to Covid experiences.

"Are we all traumatised by the pandemic?" asked Claudia Canavan in Women's Health. Emma Svanberg, a psychologist specialising in trauma, said: "I don't think we're moving on from the pandemic. I think we're stuck." The pandemic was a "collective trauma, which is continuing to have ripples", Svanberg told the magazine.

Covid "delivered a body blow" to the nation, said The Guardian, and one "from which experts say recovery will not be easy or automatic". Babies and children "appear to have suffered developmental setbacks due to lengthy periods of isolation", while "older people, who needed protecting most from Covid, were also uniquely vulnerable to the effects of physical inactivity".

A "mindset shift that persists so long after Covid" means "the fear must now be that it is permanent", wrote Annabel Denham in The Telegraph. Throughout lockdown, we told children that "it was fine – even desirable – not to go to school", but absenteeism remains "stubbornly high". There has also been a "surge", particularly among younger people, in mental ill health.

A couple from West Sussex who are still shielding four years on from the first Covid lockdown said they feel they have been "left behind". Gayle and Leslie Howard still wear masks when they leave the house. "There is over a million people still affected by shielding following the pandemic, but we are suffering," Gayle, who had a kidney transplant in 2018, told the BBC.

The pandemic could also have had an intellectual impact. A recent study suggested that "even people who completely recovered from what felt like a mild dose of Covid" might have suffered a cognitive deficit equal to three IQ points, compared with someone who was never infected, wrote Pilita Clark in the Financial Times.

While emphasising that the study had "limitations", she said that in the US this would mean an additional 2.8 million adults would be left with an IQ below 70, a threshold that suggests a level of intellectual disability that can require "significant societal support".

What next?

The next pandemic is just "around the corner", Dr Nathalie MacDermott, clinical lecturer in infectious diseases at King's College London, told Sky News. The world is "rife for outbreaks".

We "want to believe we can just go back to normal and I understand that entirely", she said. "But the next pandemic is around the corner – it might be two years, it could be 20 years, it could be longer."

From 1 April, people concerned about or susceptible to the coronavirus will be able to get a Covid vaccine at Boots for £99. It is the first time a Covid-19 vaccine has been available outside the NHS since the mass vaccination programme was launched in December 2020.

The former Dutch prime minister Dries van Agt died by euthanasia last week, hand in hand with his wife Eugenie. They were both 93.

Both had been in "fragile health" for some time after Van Agt suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2019, said the Daily Mail, and they decided it was better to "pass together given their advanced age and declining physical state".

Their deaths are seen as part of "growing trend" in the Netherlands for "duo euthanasia", said The Observer. The Mail described such endings as "the saddest deaths of all", but how many couples have taken this step and what are the regulations?

'Fly away together'

The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg are the only countries in the EU where the practice of assisted dying is legal. Euthanasia is illegal throughout the UK and can be prosecuted as murder or manslaughter. But the Isle of Man could become the first part of Britain to legalise assisted dying.

There are reported cases of couple euthanasia as far back as 2003, when a British couple, Robert and Jennifer Stokes, neither of whom was known to have a terminal illness, died at a Swiss euthanasia clinic, said The Guardian. Although the couple had made funeral arrangements before leaving England, they had not mentioned their plans to other family members.

In 2018, George and Shirley Brickenden became one of a rare number of couples in Canada to receive "doctor-assisted death", said The Globe and Mail. The couple said they had welcomed this as an opportunity to "fly away" together.

Both of them had suffered a series of illnesses in their latter years but they had talked about assisted death as an option for nearly 40 years. They became more attracted to it after watching another elderly relative suffer in the last years of her life.

The first official record of couples choosing to take their lives together in the Netherlands was in a review of all cases in 2020, when 26 people were granted euthanasia at the same time as their partners. The numbers steadily rose in the following years: 32 in 2021 and 58 in 2022.

Although no research has been undertaken on why joint euthanasia is rising, there is a simultaneous rise in euthanasia in general, which some experts have argued reflects a more individualistic and less conservative society.

Bypassing grief

Doctors in the Netherlands treat euthanasia requests from couples as two separate applications, each of which go through the same process. "Both partners are interviewed separately," said Dutch News, so the experts assessing the request "can be sure the decision is voluntary".

Often, two doctors are involved in carrying out the euthanasia, so that the couple both die at the same time.

Interest in duo euthanasia is "growing" but "still rare", Elke Swart, a spokesperson for  Expertisecentrum Euthanasie, which grants the euthanasia wish of about 1,000 people a year in the Netherlands, told The Observer.

"It is pure chance that two people are suffering unbearably with no prospect of relief at the same time… and that they both wish for euthanasia," she said.

But the trend has caused concern among some campaigners. Commenting on joint euthanasia, Professor Kevin Yuill, chief executive of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, told The Times last year that it is "increasingly seen as a solution for social rather than medical problems", because it is "very unlikely" that couples' medical pathologies "matched so perfectly".

Fransien van ter Beek, who chairs the NVVE pro-euthanasia foundation, said that although many people express an interest in a joint euthanasia, "it does not happen very often because it is not an easy path".

But it can sometimes appeal to elderly couples because "especially after a lifetime together in which people have become fused with each other", you "no longer have to experience the death of the other, so you save yourself the grief".

The war in Gaza is at a tipping point

Sean Rayment in The Spectator 

A "defining moment" may be coming in the war in Gaza, says Sean Rayment in The Spectator, with Israeli forces trapping Hamas in "ever-shrinking pockets of land". Time will be a "potentially game changing factor". While Israel attempts to ignore the "growing clamour" for the conflict to stop, Hamas knows the "longer it can hold out, the greater the chance of Israel agreeing to another ceasefire".

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Why all this Trump hysteria?

Martin Gurri on UnHerd 

"What's an authoritarian anyway?" asks former CIA analyst Martin Gurri on UnHerd. Calling Trump this "won't even reach his sensory apparatus", but it could impact the "tens of millions of Americans" who voted for him, portraying them as "goose-stepping bigots – and you know full well that they're not". Instead, people should "relax". After all, Trump is "too old, too isolated, and too ADD to have a shot at dictatorship". 

Read more

Britain's obesity problem is always someone else's fault

Madeline Grant in The Telegraph

The debate around Britain's obesity problem is "dogged by fatalism", writes Madeline Grant in The Telegraph. The word "fat" is "couched in euphemism", while obesity is "never treated as anyone's fault, but as a mystifying affliction". To tackle the problem "more positive interventions" such as promoting a healthy lifestyle are needed. Only "culture, willpower, and conscious choice" will tackle this crisis once and for all.

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Centrists are out of favour. But as the Netherlands is learning, the alternative is far worse

Arnon Grunberg in The Guardian 

The Dutch election victory of far-right populist Geert Wilders proves centrism is "drying up", says Arnon Grunberg in The Guardian. "But to dismiss the entire centre is an antidemocratic reflex that can only cause harm." It may be that "most electoral arsonists never intended to start a wildfire", but the progressive left in the Netherlands "provided antidemocratic and far-right forces with new ammunition and new impulses".

Read more

Dutch people will be putting pancakes on their heads today, said Sky News. Each year, on 29 November, Netherlands residents put pancakes on their heads and say: "We wish you a happy and blessed Saint Pancake (Sint Pannekoek)!" The tradition began in 1986, thanks to a cartoon by the artist Jan Kruis, in which a father comes home in the evening to find his family wearing pancakes on their heads.

Spider eggs toe story 'implausible'

A man's story that a wolf spider laid eggs in his toe while he was on holiday has been questioned by experts. Colin Blake was marking his 35th wedding anniversary in France when his toe turned purple overnight. The ship's doctor told him that the swelling had been caused by a wolf spider but an arachnologist has said wolf spiders were incapable of laying their eggs inside humans. The British Arachnological Society also called the story "implausible", noted the BBC.

Two-hour waste search for lost ring

Sanitation workers in the US dug through 20 tons of waste to locate a resident's lost wedding ring, reported UPI. Windham General Services received a call from a town selectman, who put him in touch with a resident whose wedding ring had accidentally been put out with the rubbish. A spokesman said his colleagues had to dig through 12 feet of rubbish bags for two hours to reach the right bag.

Far-right, anti-immigrant populist Geert Wilders has won a surprise victory in the Dutch general election, sending a clear message to Brussels about the strength of feeling across Europe.

With most of the votes counted, Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) is forecast to win 37 out of the 150 seats in parliament. That puts him well ahead of his nearest rival, a left-wing alliance led by former EU commissioner Frans Timmermans, which is likely to have won 25 seats. 

The result has "shaken Dutch politics and it will send a shock across Europe too", said the BBC. The PVV's victory has come after Wilders said he would hold a binding referendum on Dutch membership of the European Union, as well as promises to halt all aid to Ukraine, and withdraw the Netherlands from global climate pacts. 

Wilders is known for his anti-immigration, Islamophobic views. In addition to wanting immigration to be slashed, he has also called for the Koran to be banned and mosques to be closed – rhetoric he toned down in the run-up to the election.

The result puts him in line to lead talks to form a new coalition and possibly become the country's prime minister in a historic upset. But centrist parties in the Netherlands could well club together to keep Wilders out of power.

What the papers said 

Seven years after Britain voted to leave the EU, "a so-called Nexit ballot was a core plank of the far-right leader's ultimately successful offer in the Netherlands", said Politico. And while Wilders has "softened" his anti-Islam sentiments in recent weeks, "there are no signs he wants to water down his Euroskepticism after his shock election victory".

Polling suggests that the Dutch public are unlikely to vote for a "Nexit", but even so, "a Wilders-led government in The Hague will still be a nightmare for Brussels". 

A seat at the EU summit table for Wilders would "transform the dynamic" should he join other far-right and nationalist leaders already in post across Europe. "Suddenly, policies ranging from climate action, to EU reform and weapons for Ukraine will be up for debate, and even reversal."

The result is a "historic" one for the Netherlands, where "a populist radical right party [had] never before gained more than 20 percent of the vote", said Sarah de Lange, a politics professor at the University of Amsterdam, speaking to Politico's Brussels Playbook. "Few populist radical right parties in Western Europe have come first in the elections," she said, adding that the PVV is "among the most radical of the populist radical right parties with respect to its stances".

The Netherlands has often been a "bellwether" for issues that resonate across Europe, said Playbook. Dutch voters are concerned about migration, the cost of living and housing – all of which could prove to be key in next year's EU elections.

What next?

There is no guarantee that Wilders will be able to form a coalition and actually govern. Indeed, the last government took a record 271 days to be formed. 

But Wilders' victory has come at a time when the far-right is rising across Europe, with many such figures hailing the election result as a sign of things to come for the bloc as a whole. "The winds of change are here!" wrote Victor Orbán on X, the far-right leader who won a fourth consecutive term as Hungary's prime minister last year. 

The far-right has also been successful in Italy, with Giorgia Meloni winning power for her Brothers of Italy party, while in France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally is polling in second place, as is Alternative für Deutschland in Germany. Far-right parties are also topping the polls in Austria and Belgium.

The European elections, set for June 2024, are "likely to see the far right entrench itself more deeply into the political landscape", said The Conversation. National voting intention polls suggest that extreme right-wing parties could clinch up to 180 seats in the European Parliament, compared with about 130 in the current legislature.

And should centrist parties lose an "absolute pro-European majority" in the elections, "there is a risk that Europe will be ungovernable" at a time when unity is crucial amid international challenges in Russia, China and the US, warned Stéphane Séjourné, the leader of liberal Renew Europe group, speaking to Brussels Playbook. 

Mark Rutte, the longest-serving Dutch prime minister in history, is to stand down after 13 years in power.

Nicknamed “Teflon Mark” for his ability to withstand a series of political crises, Rutte unexpectedly announced he would leave politics after the autumn general election sparked by the collapse of his coalition government over a minor immigration row.

In the 27-nation EU, only Hungary’s Viktor Orban has been in charge for longer, “although their leadership styles could not be more different”, said The Independent. While the increasingly authoritarian Orban has cracked down on dissent, Rutte has, “with uncanny political savvy, navigated a Western democratic system at its most eclectic”.

Who is Mark Rutte?

Born in 1967 in The Hague, and the youngest of seven children, Rutte originally wanted to become a concert pianist but turned to politics while studying history at Leiden University.

Some of his siblings were decades older than him and it was the death of his older brother from Aids when Rutte was a young man that “altered his course”, said Politico in a profile in 2018.

“His death has drastically changed my view of life,” Rutte recalled in 2006, according to The Times. “I realised that I will only live once. There is no dress rehearsal, there is only one performance…That is where my enormous drive comes from.”

After graduating he worked for Unilever before becoming a member of Parliament in 2002. After holding a number of government briefs he was elected leader of the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) in 2006.

In the 17 years since, he has fought four general elections, heading a series of coalition governments dating back to 2010. Forced to briefly resign in January 2021 over a childcare subsidies scandal, he returned to power just two months later after his VVD party finished first in national elections.

A ‘manager not a visionary’

Described as “the great survivor of Dutch politics”, his longevity can be attributed to a combination of “backroom skills with everyman appeal” said The Guardian.

As part of his “Mr Normal” image, he still lives in the house in The Hague he bought as a student and usually cycles to work, or occasionally drives there in an old Saab. In short, said The Guardian, he “projects the kind of down-to-earth, no-nonsense, cautious image the Dutch adore”.

His sole weakness, said The Economist, “is voters’ long-standing suspicion that his sunny exterior conceals the heart of a scheming tactician”.

This has perhaps been most evident in how he dealt with the sensitive issue of immigration. Despite presenting himself as what UnHerd called “Europe’s last centrist dad” he has not been afraid to pander to the far-right, promoting so-called “Dutch values” and integration, and even forming his first coalition with the anti-Islam Geert Wilders.

Described by colleagues and friends as “a manager, rather than a visionary leader,” he succeeded in getting rival parties to talk and find compromises and “was the incarnation of Dutch consensus culture: pragmatic, flexible – and visionless”, said Politico.

What will he do now?

Many have been surprised that this great political survivor has been brought down by a minor dispute regarding asylum rules, “but Rutte’s decision was not so much a response to issues as an effort to end his time in office on his own terms”, said The Economist.

He will stay on as caretaker prime minister until a general election is held in October or November. After that he has made it clear he intends to leave politics, although what this means in practice is unclear.

He is currently teaching social studies once a week at a local school in The Hague, something he said he might “do that for a few days”.

Yet “such was Rutte’s skill in reconciling political fire and ice that in recent years he has been tipped for the top job at both the European Union and Nato,” reported The Independent.

“In the past few days there has been speculation about my motives, and the only answer is: [the interests of] the Netherlands,” he said in a brief statement to parliament announcing his resignation.

“Although it earned him long applause from MPs,” said The Economist, “not all were convinced.”

A flight from Houston to Atlanta was delayed for three hours because thousands of bees swarmed on the wing of the airplane. “My flight leaving Houston is delayed because bees have congregated on the tip of one of the wings,” tweeted a passenger. Speaking to CBS News, an airline spokesperson said: “Bee-lieve it or not, Delta flight 1682 from Houston-Bush to Atlanta took a delay this afternoon after a friendly group of bees evidently wanted to talk shop with the winglet of our airplanes, no doubt to share the latest about flying conditions at the airport.”

Police officers in Scotland ordered to shave

Police Scotland is planning to introduce a new clean-shaven policy for frontline officers, according to the BBC. It means “hundreds of officers will have to shave off their beards and moustaches by the end of the month”, said the broadcaster. The Scottish Police Federation, which represents police officers, said there had been multiple complaints about the policy, with four officers understood to be taking legal action.

Hancock paid £10,000 for interview

Matt Hancock was paid £10,000 for a television appearance in which he claimed he did not “primarily” go on a reality television show for the money. The former health secretary declared the fee from ITV for an interview on Good Morning Britain in the latest register of members’ financial interests. Earlier this year, Hancock was condemned by constituents and politicians for entering the Australian jungle for I’m A Celebrity.

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Uber’s latest ‘lost and found index’, includes a Danny DeVito Christmas ornament, an ankle monitor and a dog. The annual list of the most commonly forgotten and most unique lost items, said that the most commonly left-behind items during the past 12 months included clothing, phones and wallets. More unusual items included a unicycle, 16 ounces of fake blood, and a pin depicting Jesus holding a slice of pizza. UPI News said one customer’s report of a lost and found item was particularly curious: “My self-respect, mostly.”

AI ‘could create new religions’

Artificial intelligence could create religions to control humans, said the historian Yuval Noah Harari. “Simply by gaining mastery of the human language, AI has all it needs in order to cocoon us in a Matrix-like world of illusions,” the Israeli told the Frontiers Forum event in Switzerland, noted The Times. “For thousands of years, prophets and poets and politicians have used language and storytelling in order to manipulate and to control people”, he said, and “now AI is likely to be able to do it”.

‘Prolific’ sperm donor banned from offering more

A father of at least 550 children has been banned from donating any more of his sperm, reported Sky News. Although guidelines in the Netherlands say sperm donors are allowed to father a maximum of 25 children with 12 mothers, the “prolific donor”, has provided sperm to several Dutch fertility clinics, a facility in Denmark and people he met through ads and online forums. The Hague District Court said the parents of the children are “now confronted with the fact that the children in their family are part of a huge kinship network with hundreds of half-siblings, which they did not choose”.

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A Dutch man is being sued for allegedly increasing the risk of incest through his countless donations to sperm banks.

Jonathan Jacob Meijer, who lives in Kenya, is accused of misleading hundreds of women all over the world and may have fathered more than 550 children, according to the DonorKind foundation, which has brought the court case.

The charity is representing 25 families who are suing the 41-year-old musician. A woman named only as Eva, who had a child by Meijer in 2018, said in a statement: “If I had known he had already fathered more than 100 children I would never have chosen him.”

In 2017, Meijer was blacklisted after the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology first raised the alarm about the number of donations. However, he continued to offer his services in Denmark, Ukraine and on various websites, said Dutch News.

Dutch sperm clinic guidelines say donors should not father more than 25 children or be used by more than 12 women – to “prevent inbreeding, incest or psychological problems for donor children”, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The families and DonorKind are hoping for an injunction to stop Meijer donating sperm and to find out exactly where he has previously donated. They also want all his sperm still in storage to be destroyed, unless it has been reserved for a woman who already has one of his children.

“He has a global reach via the internet and he does business with large, international sperm banks,” DonorKind chairman Ties van der Meer, told the Telegraph. “We are taking action against this man because the government is doing nothing.”

“Going to court is the only option,” said Eva in the Daily Mirror. “Many mothers have told him he needs to stop but nothing helps,” she said.

“I like to see that there are children of mine all over the world,” Meijer said in 2019, reported The Times, after his case was first reported on.

Opened in June this year, the Anantara Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky Amsterdam provides an oasis of calm in a busy city and beautifully blends the traditional with the contemporary. On arrival you are greeted not only by immaculate doormen and hotel porters at the ready with old fashioned brass trolleys to carry your luggage, but also a charming robot which weaves its way around the large reception hall carrying mints and maps of the city.

As fascinated as we all were by the robot, thankfully there were also countless real staff on hand to help with anything you needed during your stay and the service was faultless. The main lobby is divided into pockets of comfortable seating areas with leather wingback chairs contrasting with dramatic modern chrome sculptures.

Why stay here?

Located on Dam Square, facing the Royal Palace and National Monument, you couldn’t choose a better location for a hotel in the heart of Amsterdam. It is just five minutes from Centraal Station, and a 25-minute drive from the airport. From Dam Square you can walk to most of the city’s main attractions, and there is a great network of trams if your feet get tired of pounding the pavements.

Described as the “Venice of the North”, Amsterdam developed around a dam in the Amstel river at the end of the 12th century and now has more than 100km of canals. The three main canals, dug in the 17th century, form concentric belts around the city and were listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2010. The Krasnapolsky hotel has its own private pier for boats on the Oudezijds Vooburgwal Canal.

If you are coming to Amsterdam on business, the hotel is ideal – it has all the facilities for everything from board meetings to gala dinners in the beautiful Winter Garden. Outdoor events can be held in the Summer Garden, on the rooftop terrace, or on a canal boat moored at the pier.

The rooms and facilities

The building dates back to 1856, when Polish tailor Adolph Wilhelm Krasnapolsky first opened a coffee house on the site. As the café grew in popularity, he added rooms for rent and later built it into a modern hotel. There are black and white photographs exhibited throughout which chart the history of the hotel, and the award-winning bar, The Tailor, pays tribute to Krasnapolsky’s original profession.

The 402 refurbished rooms and suites are modern and stylish, in a neutral palette, with crisp white linen and comfortable beds. We were lucky enough to have a fantastic view over Dam Square from the oversized windows in our suite. As you would expect from a five-star, the rooms are well equipped with flat-screen TVs, rainfall showers, Nespresso machines and complimentary Wi-Fi, and there is even a pillow menu.

The hotel also has a new Anantara Spa with a relaxation area overlooking the Summer Garden, three treatment rooms and Finnish, wet and infrared saunas, plus a new gym with the latest cardio and weights technology and a rotating climbing wall.

Eating and drinking

The hotel has a variety of options for dining, from The White Room under the helm of former three-Michelin star chef, Jacob Jan Boerma, to the Grand Café Krasnapolsky, overlooking Dam Square, where we had a lovely family dinner on our first night.

The Grand Café has smart leather banquettes and white table cloths and houses The Champagne Room, which offers ten different Champagnes by the glass, I went for a refreshing Moet rosé. The food is Modern European, and we started with a delicious creamy burrata salad, followed by a duck breast with celeriac purée which was equally good. The children enjoyed choosing their own puddings from The Cake Room, which has an incredible selection of pastries and freshly baked macaroons for afternoon tea.

The real highlight was the sumptuous breakfast in the iconic inner Winter Garden. You cannot help but be wowed by the beautiful setting in this Art Deco-style ballroom with a magnificent 19th century iron and glass roof, like a Victorian station in design. It’s like dining in an enormous orangerie or glass house, with verdant hanging baskets and trailing plants suspended from the mezzanine gallery. Breakfast itself was amazing – an incredible buffet spread of anything and everything you could ever wish for to prepare you for a day of sight-seeing, from fruit and yoghurt, to eggs and bacon and even donuts, which delighted the children, and of course traditional Dutch waffles.

What to do

Amsterdam has a brilliant selection of galleries and museums to suit a range of different interests, but you need to book tickets in advance. We were sadly unable to go to the Anne Frank House, where the diarist and her Jewish family and four others hid from the Nazis in a secret annex during the Second World War, because tickets were sold out. But we did manage to get tickets for the Van Gogh Museum, when combined with a boat tour, at short notice. Both are well worth doing.

The Van Gogh Museum has more than half of the artist’s work and charts the progress from his darker early paintings like The Potato Eaters to the more colourful style he discovered while living in France, including a version of the iconic Sunflowers.

A boat tour is a must in Amsterdam, it’s a wonderful way to see the city’s sights and the famous narrow townhouses lining the canals. We did ours in the evening, when the bridges were lit up with pretty festoon lights, and there was a very informative historical audio commentary.

Other highlights include the Rijksmuseum, Rembrandt House, Nemo Science Museum and Moco Modern Art Museum; there’s also a replica Dutch East Indiaman ship, and the De Gooyer Molen, a pretty thatched windmill with a brewery next door. The zoo is nice to visit with children and there is a good restaurant next door to it, De Plantage, where we enjoyed a healthy lunch.

Out and about

Aside from the main attractions, Amsterdam is a great city to just wander around, criss-crossing the canals, or to discover on two wheels. Bikes, which can be easily rented, are hugely popular in Holland and the city is well set up for cyclists, though you do have to watch out for trams! De 9 Straatjes (the nine streets) are full of quirky boutiques and eateries; we had delicious freshly cut, double-fried chips from Fabel Friet as a little snack when the small people started to flag after an afternoon of sight-seeing.

And you can’t come to Amsterdam without trying the city’s famous pancakes! We attempted to try Pancakehouse Upstairs, a tiny, charming restaurant up a steep flight of narrow stairs in a 16th century townhouse, but sadly it was fully booked. We ended up at Mama Pancake instead, where we shared two plates of wonderful warm, fluffy mini Dutch pancakes with chocolate sauce.

If you visit in spring, it is worth factoring in enough time for a trip to the world famous tulip fields just outside the city centre. The next Tulip Festival runs from 23 March to 14 May 2023. The hotel is happy to arrange any excursions and the concierge couldn’t have been more helpful in recommending activities to suit our party during our stay.

Getting there

Amsterdam is just a short flight from the UK. We flew in from London Stansted and with the time difference we arrived back home before our take-off time, as the flight was under an hour. We had a transfer from the airport organised by the hotel, but it is easy to get the train from the airport into the central station.

Anantara Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky Amsterdam, Dam 9, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Premier rooms from €346 (£298) per night, based on two sharing, including breakfast and taxes; anantara.com

King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands are on a three-day state visit to Sweden and were greeted in Stockholm on Tuesday by King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia.

The Dutch royal family were received at the Swedish Royal Palace at the start of their visit, with a state banquet on the first evening “setting the stage for the royals to dress to the nines in tiaras, gowns and jewels” wrote People. Both heads of state gave speeches at the dinner.

According to the Royal House of the Netherlands, the “state visit affirms the good relationship” between the two nations that “goes back to the 17th century”. It said the countries were “working together to make Europe greener, more resilient and economically more robust”, and the monarchs were accompanied by various ministers from the Dutch government.

Both European states are constitutional monarchies, the Netherlands “similar to the British system”, while the Swedish is “entirely ceremonial” and “no royal assent is needed to form a government”, said The New European.

In a statement, the Swedish king highlighted how the nations were “going to strengthen ties in defence and security”. The Dutch king meanwhile eluded to the changing landscape in Sweden saying it was “going through a special time”, adding that the Netherlands will “fully support” its prospective accession to Nato, which currently awaits approval from only Hungary and Turkey.

Sweden is also currently waiting for its new coalition government to form and a new prime minister to be put in place after the incumbent Social Democrats were unable to win enough seats to form a majority government, with the right-wing Sweden Democrats gaining significant ground. After weeks of negotiations “an announcement was close at hand”, said Euronews, though during the state visit “on the surface it looks like business as usual” as outgoing Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson continues to represent the country at political events.

King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima were greeted at the airport in Stockholm by Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel. According to the Daily Mail, the king “piloted their plane to Arlanda Airport himself”.

On arrival at the Royal Palace, the Dutch royals were given a guard of honour, accompanied by the Swedish king.

The Dutch king and queen posed for photos with the Swedish royal family on the first day of their state visit.

The visit also “doubled as a reunion” wrote People, as Princess Estelle, 10, daughter of Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden, greeted her godfather King Willem-Alexander. She is second in line to the throne after her mother.

The first evening of the visit provided an opportunity for full royal pageantry, with the royals wearing formal dress for a banquet where both kings made speeches.

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands wore a Stuart tiara, according to the Daily Express, which boasts a Stuart diamond first owned by British monarchs King William III and Queen Mary II.

The second day of the visit was more focused on state and business matters, including “meeting with CEOs of Dutch and Swedish companies to discuss shared challenges”, said the Royal House of the Netherlands.

The Old South district (Oud-Zuid) of Amsterdam is, according to the owners of the De Ware Jacob boutique hotel, a miniature version of Chelsea in London. They’re not wrong. The leafy residential area which huddles the museum quarter and the famous Vondelpark has a chic villagey feel and is dotted with elegant looking cafes where equally elegant denizens gather for aperitifs after work and brunch on weekends. The discerning shopping haven that is Pieter Cornelisz Hooftstraat is a dead ringer for Sloane Street too with its assortment of top boutiques including Hermes, Gucci and Chanel.

The hotel, a grand and slender building erected in 1920, is a fine example of traditional Amsterdam School architecture noted for its decorative brickwork. Like many of the properties in this exclusive area, it has a rich and poignant history: it was once home to a Jewish family who migrated from Russia after the revolution. Tragically, when the Second World War broke out, the homeowners were arrested and deported to the concentration camps of Auschwiz and Sobibor. Look carefully at the pavements and you’ll see engraved brass plaques below the doorsteps of houses honouring the Jewish residents who once resided there.

Inside the hotel

Owners Andre and Tatiana oversaw a two-year top-to-bottom refurbishment of the block, christening their new boutique business in 2020. As a result interiors have a fresh, spatial feel and every surface gleams with newness.

Influenced by a polished yet understated style, the interiors feel homely and sophisticated with only a splash of colour in the form of modern artworks and ornaments collected from the couple’s travels around the world. A bijou breakfast/lounge area on the ground floor leads to a garden terrace whose centre piece is a glorious magnolia tree.

Nineteen uncluttered bedrooms have a refined yet homely feel as if you are staying in the spare room of a chic interior designer. Nothing feels unnecessary and everything is carefully hand-picked, from the illy coffee machines and rich white cotton bed linen to the sleek lighting by Dutch designer William Brand and the luxurious M-line beds equipped with “deep sleep” technology. These comfortable mattresses were used by the Netherlands team during the Olympics which certainly stands as a testament to their gold standard.

A family-friendly atmosphere

“We have a son and we always struggled to stay in hotels of a high quality when he was little,” said Tatiana. For this reason, the De Ware Jacob is especially geared towards families. There’s a bunk room for tweens/teens as well as a 30sqm family room with two side-by-side large double beds. For those who want complete autonomy, the hotel also has two one-bed apartments with kitchenettes. The couple have also thought deeply about what kids (and parents) want after a long day exploring the city: namely excellent Wi-Fi, Netflix and Apple TV, as well as an honesty bar.

Breakfast is quick and easy thanks to a plentiful buffet of freshly baked croissants, home-made granola, local Dutch cheeses, cold cuts, eggs and waffles. Try the organic Georgian wines made following the natural method of Qvevri whereby large earthenware pots are sunk into the ground for the fermentation, storage and ageing processes without chemicals or additives.

Eating and drinking

As this is a quiet residential district, restaurants are a mix of convivial family-owned eateries such as the neighbouring Pizzeria Le 4 Stagioni (established in 1978) and upscale brasseries like George on nearby Williams Park Avenue which has various branches in the Netherlands. The latter specialises in French cuisine fused with American classics with signatures such as glazed black tuna, confit de canard and, of course, oozing stacked burgers. Cocktails are great too.

What to do

Vondelpark is Amsterdam’s largest park and the perfect place for a picnic or a bike ride. The park’s hidden gems include the 19th century Neo-Gothic church Vondelkerk and a monumental sculpture of a bird by Pablo Picasso called Figure découpée (l’Oiseau), as well as the open air theatre which is free to attend and hosts dance and musical performances as well as plays throughout the spring and summer months. Don’t forget to look up near the lake, on special constructed platforms, you are sure to spot nests of rare white storks.

A stone’s throw from Vondelpark is Amsterdam’s 19th century Museum Square home to the Rijksmuseum, the Stedelijk Museum and the Van Gogh Museum. Foodies should explore the neighbouring De Pijp area which famous for its colourful Albert Cuypmarkt, a street market with more than 300 stalls that come with the promise of generous sampling.

De Ware Jacob Boutique Hotel, Jacob Obrechtstraat 69, 1071 KJ Amsterdam, Netherlands; dewarejacobhotel.com

Opened in 2021, Hotel The Noblemen takes its name to heart and has an interior that demonstrates serious artistic flair. It’s all down to the opulent and stylistically unabashed vision of Dutch designer Stef van der Bijl, who has a reputation for restoring and repurposing antique and industrial objects to suit a luxury environment.

Each of the 13 rooms that make up this 17th century boutique Amsterdam canal house, which overlooks the Leidsegracht, is dedicated to a different seminal character from the Dutch Golden Age. Ornate, elaborate and fabulously imaginative, each room is a super luxurious cabinet of curiosities, equipped with a giant and exquisitely handcrafted leather-bound four poster bed, constructed on site due to the narrow dimensions of the staircase. There’s no lift here, but this only adds to the authenticity of the stay – the house’s first owner was a marble merchant called Isaac Foucquier, so every squeak and creak is a reminder of the rich ancestry that permeates every corner of this historic building. In fact, part of the ground floor space is still clad in Foucquier’s original marble slabs.

Inside magical rooms

Staying at Hotel The Noblemen is an education in the visionary thinking that helped to shape the modern world. It’s also a lot of fun.

The Rembrandt van Rijn signature room, a grand suite on the third floor overlooking the canal, is a wooden wonder room with oak panelled floors and an original timber-beamed ceiling. One corner has been designed as a tribute to the artist who apparently painted at least five people connected to this property. This creative nook features a deconstructed self-portrait montage and a glass-encased taxidermy pheasant – a nod to one of the painter’s favourite still life subjects. A tobacco-coloured leather sofa and a gleaming standalone brass bath complete this decadent and whimsical interior along with light fixtures cast in the shape of paint palettes.

Even more unusual is the Herman Boerhaave room dedicated to the namesake physician, botanist and scientist who was dubbed the “Dutch Hippocrates”. It features luxurious floral brocade armchairs, an ornate black marble fireplace, a standalone brass bath and antique oak furniture as well as some more unconventional additions, including a full-size metal skeleton in a glass display cabinet and a miniature herb garden at the foot of the bed. This is the only room with garden which has another bath for romantic hot soaks in winter.

Those passionate about naval history should stay in the Michiel de Ruyter room, named after the most famous admiral in Dutch history who valiantly fought the English and French during the Anglo-Dutch wars. The centrepiece is a giant antique replica of de Ruyter’s ship which took more than 40 years to complete. The maritime theme extends to a boat-shaped bath and a large “captain’s wardrobe” which opens thanks to a mechanism installed in a large wooden ship’s wheel that fastened to its doors. The only snag is that you and your guest may squabble over who gets to be the helmsman.

Other names that decorate the doors include pharmacist, zoologist and collector Albertus Seba; prolific arms traders Louys and Hendrick Trip; explorer/seafarer Abel Janszoon Tasman, after whom Tasmania in named; and physicist/astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who was the first to discover the rings surrounding Saturn. Each door opens up into richly decorated and dedicated space full of intriguing artefacts, antiques and bespoke furnishings that encourage the mind to wander.

Why stay here

Apart from immersing yourself in history, The Noblemen has a decadent breakfast menu. The food is delivered to your door since there is only one small communal area on the ground floor for coffee. It’s no flaw: staff carry up large ebony trays crammed with delicacies; a baroque feast of fresh pastries, exotic fruits, eggs, bacon, and miniature sugar-dusted pancakes, along with silverware filled with freshly ground coffee. It’s hard to leave the place, especially when you discover that the hotel has a small spa complete with sauna and Turkish hammam.

What to do

Located in the middle of the picturesque De 9 Straatjes (9 Streets) noted for its unusual independent boutiques, cafes and eateries, you won’t struggle for things to do. The hotel also has great taste when it comes to fine dining recommendations: links to top eateries Cecconi’s, Vinkeles and the Lion Noir all feature on the hotel’s website for easy booking.

Hotel The Noblemen, Leidsegracht 14, 1016 CK Amsterdam, Netherlands; hotelthenoblemen.com

Anne Frank may have been betrayed by a prominent Jewish businessman who became an informant for the Nazis in order to save his own family, a documentary has revealed.

The mystery of who gave away the hiding place of the Frank family has evaded investigators for decades. But a new probe by CBS’s 60 Minutes has seen Arnold van den Bergh, who died in 1950, emerge as the “prime suspect”, The Telegraph reported.

Led by former FBI detective Vince Pankoke, the investigation deployed “artificial intelligence to comb through voluminous records to reach its conclusion”.

The Franks went into hiding on 6 July 1942 during a period when “the Nazis were hellbent on ridding the Netherlands of all Jews” as “part of the Final Solution”, CBS said. At the time, they “were among some 25,000 Jews in hiding across the country”.

As documented in Anne’s diary, they hid in an annexe of her father Otto Frank’s warehouse where they remained until a raid by Dutch detectives and the SS in August 1944. The last entry in her diary is dated 1 August 1944.

Anne was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany where she died in early 1945, aged 15, possibly of typhus.

Her father was sent to Auschwitz and “was the one inhabitant of the secret annexe to survive”, The Telegraph said. Until his death, he “devoted much of his life trying to find out who had led the authorities to the cramped hideaway in the heart of Amsterdam”.

Previous efforts to identify a culprit have pointed the finger at Wilhelm van Maaren, a warehouse worker. But Pankoke told CBS that while he was “very shifty” and “suspicious”, there is no evidence that he was anti-Semitic, adding that he had “incentive not to betray [the family] because if he did, he would have lost his job”.

Instead, the fresh probe focused on the Jewish Council, an organisation founded by the Nazis in Amsterdam to help implement its policies and seek out Jewish people in hiding.

“We know from history that the Jewish Council was dissolved in late September of 1943 and they were sent to the camps,” Pankoke told CBS. “We figured if Arnold van den Bergh is in a camp somewhere, he certainly can’t be privy to information that would lead to the compromise of the annex.”

Asked whether records showed that he was detained in a concentration camp, he replied: “We couldn’t find Arnold van den Bergh or any of his immediate family members in those camps. If he wasn’t in the camps, where was he?”

Further investigations revealed that he was living in Amsterdam, an outcome that would only have been possible if he “had some kind of leverage”, he added.

In The Times, Daniel Finkelstein described how the team discovered that van den Bergh had “managed to have himself designated as a non-Jew and had quit the council”. But, he added that “the evidence that the council or he knew such addresses is pretty weak”, labelling it “possible, but speculative”.

According to The Telegraph, his name “did surface in a 1963 Dutch police investigation, but there is little evidence that the lead was followed up”.

Van den Bergh was also mentioned in “an anonymous note sent to Otto Frank, which he typed up for his records”, the paper added. “Frank’s copy of the note surfaced in files kept by the son of a member of the Dutch police investigation team” and “was passed on” to CBS.

Pankoke told the broadcaster that while the case remained “circumstantial”, the evidence collected in such an old case remains “pretty convincing”.

The Times’ Finkelstein agreed that “the new facts are important” and that “all research on what happened to Anne Frank helps to combat Holocaust denial”.

He added that Pankoke’s team “were spurred on by a feeling that now, once more, it is possible to imagine people living in previously civilised countries finding ways to accommodate themselves to undemocratic authorities”.

An Israeli doctor who was one of the world’s first confirmed Omicron cases says he believes he was infected with the Covid-19 variant while in London.

Cardiologist Elad Maor’s theory that he caught the virus while attending a medical conference in the English capital last month has raised fresh questions about the origins of Omicron, which has a high number of mutations.

The variant was first detected in a specimen collected on 9 November in South Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

But the South African authorities have argued that this does not prove the new strain originated in their country, which they say “is being punished – instead of applauded – for discovering Omicron”, the BBC reported. As countries worldwide banned travellers from South Africa, the Foreign Ministry said the restrictions were “akin to punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new variants quicker”.

The other origin theories

Christian Drosten, a virologist at Charite University Hospital Berlin, told Science that he believed the variant evolved “not in South Africa, where a lot of sequencing is going on, but somewhere else in southern Africa during the winter wave”.

Leading US virologist Trevor Bedford also argued, in a series of tweeted posts, that the variant probably circulated initially in a “geography with poor genomic surveillance” and “certainly not South Africa”.

Speaking to US radio network NPR, Bedford said that other Covid variants with the closest genome sequences to Omicron “are back from mid-2020”.

In other words, said the broadcaster, “while scientists can tell that this variant evolved from a strain that was circulating in mid-2020, in the intervening months there's been no trace of all the intermediate versions that scientists would have expected to find as it morphed into its current form”.

Bedford added that it was possible, if unlikely, that an earlier strain infected an unknown animal population and evolved as it spread, before recently spilling back over into humans.

In some African countries and other nations, ongoing sampling of the coronavirus has been patchy. Some experts believe Omicron may have began circulating in such a region and was able to evolve without being noticed.

However, that theory was refuted by Richard Lessells, an infectious disease specialist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, who was part of the team that first identified Omicron. The variant triggers a notable signature in the PCR tests routinely done to confirm infections, he told NPR, so “you’d have to have a pretty big blind spot to be missing something that's really evolving over a period of months”.

If the variant was not hiding inside a relatively unmonitored country, it may have evolved in a smaller entity: an individual with a weakened immune system.

Many experts, including US expert Bedford, believe the virus probably developed in a chronically infected Covid patient, such as someone whose immune response was impaired by HIV, or a drug. The virus could have lingered undetected and evolved in the patient.

Such a person’s immune system would be strong enough to prevent the virus from killing them but not to completely clear their body of the infection, creating a “kind of cat-and-mouse game where the immune response is chasing and the virus is running”, Bedford told NPR.

In cases of similar infections, he added, “over the course of the year, if you look in these individuals, you see, at the end of that time, generally a quite evolved virus”.

However, the plot thickens. Dutch health authorities announced on Tuesday that the new Omicron variant had been detected in samples collected in the Netherlands between 19 and 23 November, “indicating that it was already spreading in western Europe before the first cases were identified in southern Africa”, said CBS News.

Whether the mystery of the new variant’s origins will ever be solved is also a matter of debate. “It's unlikely we will ever know precisely when or where Omicron first emerged,” the BBC’s health editor Michelle Roberts concluded.

An Israeli doctor who was one of the world’s first confirmed Omicron cases says he believes he was infected with the Covid-19 variant while in London.

Cardiologist Elad Maor’s theory that he caught the virus while attending a medical conference in the English capital last month has raised fresh questions about the origins of Omicron, which has a high number of mutations.

The variant was first detected in a specimen collected on 9 November in South Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

But the South African authorities have argued that this does not prove the new strain originated in their country, which they say “is being punished – instead of applauded – for discovering Omicron”, the BBC reported. As countries worldwide banned travellers from South Africa, the Foreign Ministry said the restrictions were “akin to punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new variants quicker”.

The other origin theories

Christian Drosten, a virologist at Charite University Hospital Berlin, told Science that he believed the variant evolved “not in South Africa, where a lot of sequencing is going on, but somewhere else in southern Africa during the winter wave”.

Leading US virologist Trevor Bedford also argued, in a series of tweeted posts, that the variant probably circulated initially in a “geography with poor genomic surveillance” and “certainly not South Africa”.

Speaking to US radio network NPR, Bedford said that other Covid variants with the closest genome sequences to Omicron “are back from mid-2020”.

In other words, said the broadcaster, “while scientists can tell that this variant evolved from a strain that was circulating in mid-2020, in the intervening months there's been no trace of all the intermediate versions that scientists would have expected to find as it morphed into its current form”.

Bedford added that it was possible, if unlikely, that an earlier strain infected an unknown animal population and evolved as it spread, before recently spilling back over into humans.

In some African countries and other nations, ongoing sampling of the coronavirus has been patchy. Some experts believe Omicron may have began circulating in such a region and was able to evolve without being noticed.

However, that theory was refuted by Richard Lessells, an infectious disease specialist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, who was part of the team that first identified Omicron. The variant triggers a notable signature in the PCR tests routinely done to confirm infections, he told NPR, so “you’d have to have a pretty big blind spot to be missing something that's really evolving over a period of months”.

If the variant was not hiding inside a relatively unmonitored country, it may have evolved in a smaller entity: an individual with a weakened immune system.

Many experts, including US expert Bedford, believe the virus probably developed in a chronically infected Covid patient, such as someone whose immune response was impaired by HIV, or a drug. The virus could have lingered undetected and evolved in the patient.

Such a person’s immune system would be strong enough to prevent the virus from killing them but not to completely clear their body of the infection, creating a “kind of cat-and-mouse game where the immune response is chasing and the virus is running”, Bedford told NPR.

In cases of similar infections, he added, “over the course of the year, if you look in these individuals, you see, at the end of that time, generally a quite evolved virus”.

However, the plot thickens. Dutch health authorities announced on Tuesday that the new Omicron variant had been detected in samples collected in the Netherlands between 19 and 23 November, “indicating that it was already spreading in western Europe before the first cases were identified in southern Africa”, said CBS News.

Whether the mystery of the new variant’s origins will ever be solved is also a matter of debate. “It's unlikely we will ever know precisely when or where Omicron first emerged,” the BBC’s health editor Michelle Roberts concluded.

1. Centrism is the great enemy of the working class

Ryan Coogan for The Independent

on a political placebo

“Centrism – an ideology that should have been crushed under the weight of its own ineptitude during the disastrous coalition years – is back with a fresh coat of paint,” writes Ryan Coogan, “and the same do-nothing attitude that made it the darling of people who don’t want to admit to being right wing”. Writing for The Independent, he argues that “today, the mainstream political discourse has moved so far towards Conservatism that today’s centre is yesterday’s right”. Having grown up on council estates, Coogan writes that “the real evil of so-called moderation is that the working class is suffering now, and has been for a long time” and that “it can’t wait much longer for positive change”. He describes centrism as “a placebo that requires nothing of us, and for which we receive nothing in return… change, on the other hand, is difficult, but also rewarding – and, ultimately, necessary”.

Read more

2. Why Rotterdam erupted

Senay Boztas for Unherd

on complex ashes

“Dutch leaders were quick to paint the riots as acts of hooliganism rather than protest,” says Senay Boztas, a Brit who lives in the Netherlands, after the recent anti-lockdown unrest in Rotterdam. But she argues that this is “overly simplistic”. “This isn’t some new phenomenon: the Dutch police have been highlighting the increasing violence of protesters for several years,” she writes for Unherd. Behind the resentment of rioters are bigger social problems. There is “a deep polarisation in Dutch society” and trust in government policy and leadership has “plummeted”. Meanwhile, she explains, a “light-touch legal system and emphasis on alternatives to prison and processes like mediation” could also be a factor in the unrest. She concludes that “this isn’t a time to sit back and dismiss the rioting as an ‘orgy’ of criminal activity” but it is “time to sift through the ashes”.

Read more

3. More fool countries that normalise drug use

Clare Foges for The Times

on ‘Big Weed’

Noting moves towards the legalisation of cannabis in Europe and the US, Clare Foges said she learned of them “with dread” because the West’s “steady progress towards cannabis legalisation” is a “slow-motion car crash”. She writes that “weed’s association with amiable stoners” masks the fact that the concentration of the main psychoactive component has become about five times higher over the past 15 years and is “devastating lives”. The Times columnist writes of “families who have watched as a once-vibrant son or daughter descends into the hell of severe mental illness, paranoia keeping them a prisoner in their bedroom”, and doctors “who dealt with a record 100,000 drug-related admissions last year”. She said that although “Big Weed” is seen as a progressive campaign, a “truly progressive policy would be to enforce the laws we already have, to help prevent more people from falling victim to this nasty drug”.

Read more

4. You cannot preach about going green from the luxury of your private jet

Lucy Burton for The Telegraph

on high-profile hypocrisy

“The corporate elite’s green preaching is currently being drowned out by the roar of their private jets,” argues Lucy Burton for The Telegraph. The paper’s banking editor reminds us that “hundreds of wealthy leaders recently flew into Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference in private jets and have continued to fly privately since”. Small jets emit ten times more greenhouse gases per passenger than scheduled flights and are 50 times more polluting than trains, she tells readers. Burton says that however convenient private jets are, “high-profile business executives who have become newly hooked on flying this way, or are used to it having done so all their careers, must wean themselves off” because “boasting about going green while jetting around in a private plane is not a good look as the planet burns”.

Read more

5. We are way past peak puppy – it’s time to end the great British dog obsession

Tim Dowling for The Guardian

on mutt madness

“When people ask me if I’m a dog lover I always say, ‘I’m a dog owner – it’s not the same thing’,” writes Tim Dowling in The Guardian, adding that he does not “wish to be mistaken for some kind of enthusiast”. With more than three million new pets acquired in the UK during the Covid crisis, many of them dogs, Dowling believes our obsession with dogs has got out of hand. He argues that the Dog TV channel and the DogPhone that allows your pet to call you are “completely barking”. He adds that: “I can’t really imagine what it would be like to have your phone go off in a meeting and then say: ‘Sorry, I need to take this; it’s from my dog.’” As unwanted dogs are handed over to the Dogs Trust, Dowling says that “as much as it’s worth reminding people that a dog isn’t just for Covid, I can’t help hoping that the fading of the pandemic will bring a stop to all the madness”.

Read more

Europe is at “critical point” in the Covid-19 pandemic after once again becoming the “epicentre” of the global outbreak, a World Health Organization boss has warned.

Urging governments to re-impose or continue with Covid restrictions, the WHO’s Europe director, Hans Kluge, said that all of the continent’s 53 countries were facing “a real threat” of a resurgence of the virus or were “already fighting it”.

On the current trajectory, he told a press conference yesterday, the wider Europe area may be facing another half a million coronavirus deaths by the beginning of February.

WHO warning

Covid cases are “at near-record levels” in a string of European nations, amid “uneven vaccine coverage and a relaxation of preventive measures”, said The Guardian.

Kluge told reporters on Thursday that “with the widespread resurgence of the virus, I am asking every health authority to carefully reconsider easing or lifting of measures”.

“We must change our tactics, from reacting to surges of Covid-19, to preventing them from happening in the first place,” he said.

Catherine Smallwood, WHO Europe’s senior emergency officer, noted that countries that had mostly lifted preventive measures had suffered a surge in infections.

Covid vaccinations meant these nations had not seen “the same rates of hospitalisation or mortality we would have otherwise expected”, she said. But “the more cases you have in crude terms, the more people will end up in hospital, and the more people will in the end go on to die”, Smallwood added.

‘Beginning to buckle’

Countries including Germany are “in the midst of a virulent fourth wave” of Covid, said Politico. The German authorities reported 34,000 new infections of Thursday – “a new high”. In “low-vaxx Eastern Europe”, Romania and Bulgaria have also reported their highest death tolls since the beginning of the pandemic.

In Germany, hospitals are “beginning to buckle under the pressure” as intensive care beds fill up, said Deutsche Welle.

And intensive care units are already at full capacity in many hospitals in Latvia, where a health chief warned this week that doctors may soon need to “prioritise” the most at-risk patients, public broadcaster LSM reported.

In the Netherlands, the government has reintroduced tougher social restrictions after new infections increased by 5% in the week to 2 November to almost 54,000.

Gloomy outlook

Despite the steep hikes in infection rates, there is “some good news”, said Politico.

According to the news site, health experts say “the current rise in infections is different than in 2020, because infections in those who are vaccinated are in most cases not leading to serious illness, and hospitalisation rates are lower.

“That’s certainly bearing out in countries such as Germany.”

But the outlook is gloomier in Eastern European, as many countries in the region continue to shun Covid vaccines. The EU states with the lowest vaccination rates include Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Poland, Latvia and Estonia.

Romania had the world's highest Covid death rate per capita this week, with the virus killing one Romanian every five minutes. As the country's total death tally nears 50,000, “cemeteries and undertakers can no longer cope with the large number of dead”, with reports of coffin shortages, said EUobserver.

According to latest John Hopkins University tracking, only 33% of Romania's 20m-strong population are fully vaccinated, compared with more than 74% across the EU as a whole.

Wildcats have been spotted in the Netherlands for the first time in several centuries.

“The return of the animal, with its distinctive round-tipped and black-ringed tail, is a sign of the rewilding of forests in the southern Dutch region of Limburg,” says The Guardian. Wildcats disappeared from the area in the middle ages, due to hunting and forest clearance.

Hettie Meertens, a biologist who works for the ARK conservation group, said the cats would benefit from changing forest management, which now favours nature over wood harvesting. This leads to wilder forests, with fallen trees and hollow spaces that offer wildcats places to rest.

Conservationists have also been encouraging farmers to plant “cat-kind” hedges in their fields to provide habitat for voles, the wildcats’ natural prey.

“The population is small but it is increasing,” said Meertens, and conservationists are confident that they will soon be seen over a much wider area.

ARK plans to count the number of wildcats next year. This task will involve smearing valerian oil, a scent that attracts the cats, on to the branches of trees to encourage them to linger under the lenses of cameras.

The wildcat was once endemic across Eurasia and Africa, says Nature World News. It has longer legs and a flatter head than its domestic cousin.

It has been extinct in England for more than 200 years, and although “a population of about 300 wildcats remains in Scotland”, says the BBC, “it has been called ‘functionally extinct’ due to interbreeding with domestic cats”.

A wildlife charity, the Wildwood Trust, is hoping to re-establish the species in the UK within the next few years.

A library has apologised after a dildo-wearing man in a rainbow-coloured monkey suit was booked for a children’s reading event. An unnamed actor wore the costume, complete with exposed buttocks, at the Redbridge Libraries Summer Reading Challenge in east London. Footage shows his fake penis flapping around as he danced. Parents were less than pleased, with one saying: “Someone needs to lose their job over this.”

World’s ‘most expensive’ burger

A chef in the Netherlands has created the world’s most expensive burger and is selling it for €5,000 (£4,250). The aptly-named ‘Golden Boy’ burger, created by Robbert Jan de Veen of De Daltons diner in Voorthuizen, uses ingredients including Beluga caviar, king crab, Spanish Paleta Iberico and white truffle. Its barbecue sauce is made with Kopi Luwak, an expensive coffee bean and the bun is made with Dom Perignon champagne dough.

The sweat-based phone charger

Scientists have invented a gadget that turns sweaty skin into a power source that could recharge devices while you sleep. Wearing the device for a ten-hour kip produces enough power to run a watch for 24 hours, according to the team at the University of California San Diego. Experts describe the development as “the holy grail” of energy harvesting.

An internationally renowned journalist is fighting for his life in hospital after being shot in the head on a street in central Amsterdam.

Peter R. de Vries, who is “widely known and praised for his investigative work on the Dutch criminal underworld”, was gunned down last night as he left a television studio in the Dutch capital after appearing as a guest, Euronews reports.

‘Shocking and inconceivable’

Two men were arrested in a car on the A4 motorway at Leidschendam “hours after the attack”, the BBC reports. The suspects - a 35-year-old Polish national living in the central Netherlands town of Maurik and a 21-year-old man from Rotterdam - are due to appear in court on Friday. An 18-year-old was also arrested separately in Amsterdam, but has been released from custody and is not considered a suspect, police said in a statement.

Witnesses told Dutch broadcaster RTL that de Vries was shot up to five times, including once in the head.

Caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte has described the shooting as “shocking and inconceivable”. Addressing press at The Hague, Rutte said: “It is an attack on a courageous journalist and therefore an attack on the freedom of the press which is so essential for our democracy and our rule of law.”

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema told a televised news conference that De Vries, who is “a national hero to us all”, had been “seriously wounded and is fighting for his life”.

The “celebrity journalist” has won many fans by “speaking on behalf of crime victims”, but has previously required police protection “after receiving threats related to his involvement in high-profile criminal cases as a reporter and in court”, The Telegraph reports.

One such case was the 1983 abduction of beer billionaire Freddy Heineken. De Vries wrote a book about the investigation that was adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken, in 2015. The following year, the journalist “filed a death threat complaint against one of the men involved in the kidnapping, notorious gangster Willem Holleeder”, says the newspaper.

De Vries went on to win an international Emmy Award for a televison programme that he made about the disappearance of US teenager Natalee Holloway, who vanished from the Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005.

More recently, he had been “acting as a counsellor, but not lawyer, to a state witness identified as Nabil B.” in a case related to Ridouan Taghi, a Moroccan-Dutch national on trial on drug trafficking and murder charges, CNN reports.

Taghi is the “suspected boss of the internationally operating ‘Marengo’ gang” and is “feared as an unscrupulous underworld boss”, RTL reports. He is being held in Nieuw Vosseveld, a maximum security prison in the southern Netherlands, and was on Europol’s “most wanted” list prior to his arrest in Dubai in December 2019.

Following his arrest, Taghi “took the unusual step of making a public statement denying reports that he had threatened to have de Vries killed”, says CNN. Nabil B.’s then lawyer had been shot and killed on an Amsterdam street months earlier.

Dutch police have not confirmed whether de Vries was under police protection when he was attacked yesterday, and there is no evidence that Taghi was involved.

‘Extreme gang violence’

The shooting of de Vries “has shaken the Netherlands”, with messages of concern about “the safety of all journalists coming from leading figures across the country”, the BBC reports.

In a tribute to de Vries, Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said that the “extraordinary journalist” was an “admirable warrior against injustice for the underdog”. The Netherlands’ King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima said they were “deeply shocked” by the attack, adding: “Journalists must be free to carry out their important work without threats.”

Fears for the safety of the country’s journalists have been mounting in the past decade, with Vice reporting last year that the “quiet corner of northern European” has become “a theatre of extreme drug warfare”. Along with Belgium, “underworld violence is on the up in the otherwise peaceful” country, said the news site, “and it’s all linked to the international cocaine trade”.

A “huge chunk of Europe’s coke comes through Rotterdam and Antwerp”, according to Vice, prompting “global crime syndicates” - “from Belgian and Dutch drug businesses to Italian mafias, British firms and mobs from Africa and eastern Europe” - to establish “permanent bases” in the Netherlands “to keep business running smoothly”.

Dutch society has also been hit by an outbreak of violent anti-lockdown protest, with a pipe bomb explosion at a Covid-19 testing centre in the northern town of Bovenkarspel in early March prompting fears that the demonstrations were also linked to the rise of organised crime.

Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index puts the Netherlands in sixth place out of 180 countries, behind Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Costa Rica.

But the shooting in Amsterdam marks a “dark day, not only for the people close to de Vries, but also for the freedom of the press” in the Netherlands, Security Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus said yesterday.

“We want journalists in the Netherlands to be able to carry out any investigation that needs to be carried out in freedom,” Grapperhaus added.

“This freedom has been seriously undermined tonight.”

A pipe bomb explosion at a Dutch Covid testing centre has raised fears that the string of violent anti-lockdown protests and incidents in recent months is far from over.

The crude homemade device blew out windows at a drive-through test centre in the town of Bovenkarspel, 40 miles north of Amsterdam, The Sun reports. Police sealed off the area until explosives experts could examine the site before declaring it safe.

The Netherlands has seen high levels of resistance to Covid lockdown measures, with riots raging for three days across 10 cities in January during which hundreds of protesters were arrested. Three people, including a teenager, were arrested after an arson attack on a test centre in the fishing village of Urk.

The riots were initially viewed as a response to the introduction of a 9pm-4.30am curfew, which was the first restriction of its kind since the “stay at home” order imposed by the Nazi occupation during the Second World War, the BBC reported. However, Prime Minister Mark Rutte dismissed the explanation at the time, condemning the riots as “criminal violence”.

Organising mainly on social media apps, the rioters included “far-right extremists, hooligans, Covid-19 deniers and political protesters”, according to Euronews. Dr Jelle van Buuren, an expert in security issues and conspiracy theories at the University of Leiden, told the site: “There is a connection [between the protesters] and that is distrust in the government, hate against the government, and even more broadly, hate and distrust when it comes to all sorts of societal institutions.”

As has been seen in the UK, the country’s efforts to impose Covid restrictions have also been met with resistance from far-right figures, with Geert Wilders, the leader of the right-wing Party for Freedom, claiming the curfew was “a sign of utter impotence and panic” from the government.

The involvement of criminal gangs in the violence has also not been ruled out. The Netherlands has seen high levels of “open gang warfare” in recent years, with a “huge chunk” of Europe’s cocaine now travelling through ports in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Vice says.

“And this mafia invasion, along with the subsequent violence, has sparked very real fears that the region is becoming something of a narco-state,” the site adds.

The mafia has been closely involved in stirring up protests against lockdown measures in Italy. Experts say coronavirus restrictions are “harming their business” due to “increased police checks and closures affecting their ability to demand extortion payments and leading to reduced drug sales revenues”, Politico says.

A Jewish family suing a Dutch museum for the return of an £18m painting bought from the Nazis in 1940 have accused officials of showing bias.

The family’s lawyers “told an Amsterdam court there was an ‘appearance of partiality and a conflict of interest’ within the Netherlands’ restitutions committee which advises on the return of art lost by Jewish families”, The Guardian reports.

The committee ruled two years ago that Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum could keep Bild mit Hausern (Painting with Houses), by Russian abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky. The institution bought the artwork from Robert Lewenstein at a knock-down price five months into the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, when he and his wife had already fled to France.

Nevertheless, the committee said that Lewenstein had freely chosen to sell the painting and the museum had bought it in good faith.

“To label the auction of works of art belonging to the Lewenstein family as voluntary is bizarre,” lawyer Simon van der Sluijs, representing Lewenstein’s heirs, told a court in the Netherlands capital. “Immediately after the invasion, the Germans started looting art. Pressure and coercion and the justified fear that lived among the Jews were used.”

According to the family, four of the seven members of the restitutions committee are either members of the Stedelijk Museum’s business club or work at an office that sponsors the institution.

A spokesperson for the museum denied any conflict of interest, insisting that all of the committee members were “competent and able to assess the case”. None had a financial interest in the museum or had ever been employed by it, the representative said.

In March, another family “complained to the Dutch culture minister that the committee in charge is not showing respect to families ‘traumatised’ by the Holocaust”, as The Telegraph reported at the time.

Descendants of Johanna Margarete Stern-Lippmann, who was killed in Auschwitz, are trying to reclaim another Kandinsky painting, also now owned by the Stedelijk Museum.

A ruling is expected in the Lewenstein case on 16 December.

Russia has denied claims that an increase in radiation over northern Europe is the result of a leak at one of its power stations.

Nuclear watchdogs in Finland, Norway and Sweden last week reported “higher-than-usual” quantities of radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere across Scandinavia and in some Arctic regions, the BBC says.

Dutch researchers who analysed data from their Nordic neighbours said that the radiation appeared to originate “from the direction of western Russia” and could indicate “damage to a fuel element”.

But Russian nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom insists there are no problems at its two power plants in the country’s northwest.

Russian news agency Tass quoted a Rosenergoatom spokesperson who said that both plants - one near St Petersburg, and the other near the port city of Murmansk - were “working in normal regime”.

Radiation levels around the two power stations “have remained unchanged in June”, the spokesperson added.

The denial came after Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), tweeted on Friday that its Stockholm monitoring station had detected three isotopes - Cs-134, Cs-137 and Ru-103 - at higher than usual levels.

“These isotopes are most likely from a civil source,” he added.

The Independent reports that “the low levels and particular isotopes detected in Scandinavia are not harmful either to humans or the environment”.

All the same, Deutsche Welle (DW) notes that painful “memories remain of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster”.

The explosion of the fourth reactor at a Soviet plant north of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv “polluted swathes of Europe and prompted control attempts by thousands of Soviet emergency personnel”, many of whom suffered fatal long-term illness as a result of radiation explosure, says the German newspaper.

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A man and at least five young adults believed to be his children are receiving medical treatment after hiding in a secret basement room for nine years waiting “for the end of time”, according to news agencies in the Netherlands.

Local media claims the group were discovered by police at a farmhouse near the remote village of Ruinerwold, in the northern Dutch province of Drenthe, after a local cafe owner raised the alert. The family, the youngest of whom is 16, are believed to have had no contact with the outside world for almost a decade.

Reports conflict over the number of young adults in the cellar, with some outlets reporting that six were found, and the whereabouts of their mother is unknown.

English-language Dutch news site NL Times says that another man, aged 58, who was renting the farmhouse, was arrested after refusing to cooperate with the police inquiry. Neighbours claimed that the man, named only as Joseph B, spoke German and was referred to by locals as “the Austrian”, adds The Guardian.

A police spokesperson confirmed that a man had been arrest but “would not confirm the relation between the people or describe the conditions they were found in or their state of health”, The Telegraph reports.

The alarm was reportedly raised by local man Chris Westerbeek, who told reporters that the oldest of the children, a 25-year-old man, had come to his cafe in Ruinerwold early in October and ordered and drunk five beers on his own.

When the man then reappeared ten days later looking “confused”, Westerbeek contacted the authorities. The cafe owner said the man “had long hair, a dirty beard [and] wore old clothes” and had “said he’d never been to school and hadn’t been to the barber for nine years”.

“You could see he had no idea where he was or what he was doing,” Westerbeek added. “He said he had run away and that he urgently needed help.”

The BBC reports that after being called to the farmhouse, police “discovered a hidden staircase behind a cupboard in the living room that led down to a secret room where the family were housed”.

DutchNews.nl reports that the group had been “living in isolation waiting for the end of time” and were “completely self-sufficient due to a vegetable garden at the property and animals”.

Local newspaper the Algemeen Dagblad says police were considering the possibility that the mother of the children may have died and is buried on the property.

As citizens across Europe head to the polls today, pundits are predicting a surge in support for the Continent’s myriad populist parties as voters turn their backs on the Establishment.

But few populist politicians have seen their support base swell so much as that of Thierry Baudet, the founder and leader of the Forum for Democracy (FvD), a controversial far-right party in the Netherlands that was formed just three years ago.

Described by The Times as a “populist upstart”, the 36-year-old’s outspoken views have seen the FvD poll neck-and-neck with Dutch President Mark Rutte’s ruling liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).

Where many far-right populists present themselves as representatives “of the people”, championing the working class and decrying elitism, Baudet’s approach is rather difference.

The Guardian describes him as a “philosopher-dandy with a penchant for playing piano in his office, posing nude on social media and quoting Latin in parliament”. Left-leaning US news site Jacobin says the FvD is “the most self-consciously elitist party in the Dutch political landscape”.

“The FvD candidate list is made up of lawyers, surgeons, corporate managers, businessmen, retired military officers, and most of all the FvD’s programmatic statements promise class war from above on all fronts,” the site adds.

Yet despite his elitist image, Baudet’s meteoric rise comes as no surprise to many commentators. The New Statesman notes that the Dutch have “experienced the same universal factors that tend to foster populism” across the Western world, including “deindustrialisation, a neoliberal consensus, social fragmentation and migration”.

And by using often heavily coded rhetoric, the FvD leader has maneuvered his way into mainstream political discourse, offering “a fundamentally racist, authoritarian and nativist project in centre-right – or more precisely, middle-class – clothing”, according to the news site.

So just how did Baudet rise to political prominence, and how big a role will he play in the predicted populist earthquake at the EU elections?

Who is Thierry Baudet?

Born in the Dutch town of Heemstede in 1983, Baudet studied law at university before going to work as a columnist for NRC Handelsblad, a liberal newspaper based in Amsterdam, in 2011.

However, after leaving the paper the following year, his politics quickly veered to the extreme nationalist right. Baudet subsequently published multiple books laying out his strongly anti-immigration and Eurosceptic views, with titles including The Attack on the Nation State and Oikophobia: the fear of home.

According to The Guardian’s Joost de Vries, over the years Baudet has spoken out in favour of Donald Trump and Viktor Orban’s strongly anti-immigration policies, “made friends in France with Le Pen (father and daughter), and sided with Vladimir Putin over MH17”, the Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 193 Dutch nationals that was shot down over Ukraine in 2014.

The nationalist leader has also been “flirting with Nexit” for a long time, “constantly calling Brussels the root of all evil”, de Vries adds.

In 2015, Baudet founded the FvD, which was initially conceived as a Eurosceptic think-tank to campaign in the Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum the following year.

In September 2016, Baudet converted the FvD to become a political party, and quickly gained support from the Dutch upper and middle classes.

Political career

The anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) and its leader Geert Wilders have dominated far-right populist discourse in the Netherlands during much of this decade, and conform to “stereotypes of the far-right, with controversial rallies dominated by thuggish chants of ‘less Moroccans’”, The Times reports.

So Europe was “stunned” when Baudet’s FvD became the largest party in the Dutch senate at the provincial elections in March, says The Japan Times.

The New Statesman argues that Baudet and the FvD have “eclipsed” Wilders and the PVV as bastions of the far-right in the Netherlands, but Jacobin suggests that voters migrating from the PVV to the FvD are not making a like-for-like switch.

Wilders, who initially sat on the right wing of Rutte’s secular neoliberal VVD party, left in order to launch the PVV and subsequently “postured as a defender of the welfare state, claiming the real threat to it was immigration and that immigrants’ access to social security needed to be restricted further”, says Jacobin.

“Conversely, the FvD election manifesto calls for destroying laws that protect workers against dismissal and in case of illness, for selling off social housing, and abolishing inheritance taxes as well as subsidies for tenancy and healthcare costs,” the site adds.

During a 20-minute victory speech - some of which was in Latin - following the March election, Baudet said that voters had punished the Dutch establishment for their “arrogance and stupidity”, adding that the FvD and its members “have been called to the front because our country needs us”.

He also spoke of preserving the “boreal world”, an obscure term meaning Northern European or white.

Why are people flocking to the FvD?

Latest polls suggest Baude’s party and Rutte’s ruling VVD are level pegging, with both claiming around 15% of the vote share. The Dutch Labour party (PvdA), GreenLeft and Christian Democratic Appeal follow close behind, on around 13% each.

The Times reports that there is a “real prospect” of Baudet’s party now edging ahead to beat Rutte’s, despite the VVD “having dominated Dutch politics for 25 years”.

The reasons for this swing are a matter of debate.

“Voters have become more extreme,” Amy Verdun, European politics professor at Leiden University, told the South China Morning Post this week. “The populists made things simple. You may not agree with them, but they simplify things for the ordinary citizen.”

The Guardian’s de Vries suggests that this surge in right-wing support may also be a result of the sidelining of Wilders, whom many voters believed to be “too crude or uncivilised” to back. “Now feel they have someone they can vote for without feeling crude themselves,” he adds.

That view is echoed by Claes de Vreese, politics professor at the University of Amsterdam. “He does attract a certain audience of voters who may be disgruntled by the fact that Wilders’ style is very confrontational and not particularly intellectual,” de Vreese says.

What will an FvD surge mean?

To some, the rise of the FvD is far more worrying than the previous surges by the PVV.

According to Politico, opponents of Baudet see him as a “pseudo-intellectual whose sophisticated air masks extreme-right views, economically disastrous ideas, misogyny and policies that contravene international law”.

Although the PVV has called for the banning of the Koran, the party also claims to be defending Dutch liberal values, whereas Baudet seems to “flirt with ideas that are openly fascist”, the news site continues. The FvD boss frequently mingles with controversial hate figures, and reportedly had an extended meeting with US white supremacist Jared Taylor late last year.

GreenLeft leader Jesse Klaver argues that Baudet fosters a “sad old-fashioned view of men and women for a young guy”, and that claims that his “flirting with right-wing extremism is a coincidence is naive”.

“Anyone who thinks that Baudet stands up for women's rights is wrong,” Klaver says. “Anyone who thinks that Baudet serves the interests of the Dutch will be disappointed.”

Like the PVV before them, however, not everyone believes that the FvD are here to stay. University professor Verdun believes that most voters will ultimately back centrist parties, not least due to the “repeated failure of squabbling populist and far-right parties to unite within the European Parliament”.

“The populists’ problem is that they can never agree on anything,” she said. “If they don’t capitalise on their result, the populists will never get much further.”

A new anti-immigrant populist party has made sweeping gains in Dutch regional elections, following a last-minute boost in the polls driven by this week’s terrorist shooting in Utrecht.

Launched in 2016 by 36-year-old Thierry Baudet, the Forum for Democracy (FvD) is on course to win 12 seats in the Dutch upper house, making it the largest party in the senate along with that of the prime minister, Mark Rutte.

“A proponent of Dutch-first cultural, social and economic policies”, The Guardian says “Baudet wants improved relations with Russia, opposes the euro, and has called for the Netherlands to leave the EU – although he has since said he will see how Brexit plays out first”.

France 24 says “the flamboyant former academic is known for controversial statements such as ‘women in general excel less in jobs and have less ambition’”.

Campaigning on a platform of more direct democracy, less immigration and climate change denial, Baudet adopted classic populist tactics which have delivered gains across Europe and around the world in recent years.

Accusing successive governments of failing to maintain strict border controls, following the results he said the “stupidity and arrogance” of the elites had been punished.

“We stand here in the rubble of what was once the most beautiful civilisation,” he told supporters. “We won because the country needs us.”

“Dutch right-wing populism, dominated for a decade by Wilders and his Freedom Party, has been transformed in the past two years by the rapid growth of the Forum for Democracy,” reports Politico.

The news site says “Baudet shocked establishment parties this week by blaming the government's migration policy for the Utrecht attack just hours after the shooting. All other parties had suspended campaigning.”

Three people were killed and three more seriously injured on a tram in Utrecht when Turkish-born suspect Gokmen Tanis opened fire earlier this week.

While the motivation of the shooter is not yet known, the BBC reports that “a terrorist motive is being seriously taken into account”.

“This is a combination of an honour killing and a half-terrorist motive,” Baudet told supporters at a rally, Reuters reported.

Pollsters who had not predicted the FvD would make such gains have suggested the attack could have led a last-minute surge to the party.

The Times says “its success will ring alarm bells across European capitals little more than a month before European elections, at which populist parties are expected to make gains”.

However, The Guardian says in the Netherlands “despite the populists’ improved performance it will not easily be translated into increased clout in the upper house, since the other parties have pledged not to work with them”.

A man has been arrested in connection with a fatal shooting in the Dutch city of Utrecht, police confirmed yesterday evening.

He has been identified as Gokmen Tanis, a 37-year-old Turkish national already known to authorities.

Three people were killed and five others wounded when a gunman opened fire on a tram at 10:45 local time, in what authorities initially described as a possible terrorist attack.

Residents were told to remain indoors and schools were closed as heavily armed police hunted the attacker. Several homes were raided and a car thought to have been stolen by the gunman was searched.

“Today is a black day for our city, for Utrecht,” said Mayor Jan van Zanen. “Unsuspecting and innocent people in the tram on their way to work or school were attacked.”

He said the motive for the attack remained unclear, adding: “We take a terrorist motive into account, but we cannot exclude other motives.”

The incident comes just days after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

But police spokesman, Bernhard Jens, suggested that the attack may have been a domestic dispute.

Several eyewitnesses said the gunman appeared to target one woman and then turned his gun on several people who were trying to drag her to safety, Dutch News reports.

“I heard three shots and four people ran towards her and tried to drag her away,” one man told RTV Utrecht. “Then I heard more shots and the people let her go. It was chaotic.”

Another witness gave the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper a similar account.

“I had the impression he was firing at one person in particular, because I saw a woman crawl out,” he said. “Other people tried to help her, and when they did that he went round behind her and began firing at them.”

The discovery of three funeral urns full of human ashes on beaches in the Netherlands has prompted a public apology by a Dutch shipping company.

The containers all washed up separately on shores in the neighbouring western coastal towns Katwijk and Noordwijk over the past week, sparking “fevered speculation about how they got there”, reports The Guardian.

The metal urn lids were stamped with the dates of birth, death and cremation of the deceased, and marked “for collection” from a crematorium in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, northern Germany – nearly 500 miles away, says German newspaper Deutsche Welle.

All three were found by local people, including 14-year-old Maarten van Duijn and his father. The schoolboy told reporters: “We checked it out, because we thought it could have been a disguise for something else, drugs for example.”

The discovery that the urns really did hold human ashes triggered a statement from the Stralsund public prosecutor’s office, which covers the Greifswald area, saying that a formal investigation might be launched.

However, shipping firm Trip Scheepvaart yesterday admitted responsibility for the incident, telling Germany’s DPA news agency that the urns had “slipped from an employee’s hands over the railing” of one of its vessels ahead of a planned mass marine funeral.

“The incident is very unpleasant for us,” said company spokesperson Silvia Roos, who added that the firm was considering how to apologise to the relatives of the deceased.

Roos added that the contents of two of the three urns have now been scattered at sea, with plans to do the same with the third shortly.

Germany has “some of the strictest rules in Europe for the disposal of human ashes”, including burials at sea, prompting “initial confusion about how the urns made their way to the Netherlands”, reports the BBC.

In most German states it is illegal to keep, bury or scatter human ashes outside of a cemetery, and ashes intended for sea burials must be put in an urn that is biodegradable - which the metal ones found in the Netherlands do not appear to have been.

A church in the Netherlands has been holding non-stop sermons around the clock for five weeks in order to prevent the deportation of a refugee family.

Under Dutch law, authorities are not allowed to enter a church if religious ceremonies are in progress. With that in mind, the Bethel International Church, in the city of The Hague, has kept a service running around the clock since 26 October in order to prevent the arrest of the Tamrazyan family, who fled Armenia in 2009, The National reports.

Some 450 volunteer pastors – including Roman Catholics and lay preachers – have flocked to the church to take part, adds The Daily Telegraph.

The Tamrazyans - parents Sasun and Anousche and their children Hayarpi, Warduhi and Seyran, aged between 15 and 21 - have lived in the Netherlands for nine years, after fleeing Armenia when Sasun received death threats because of his political activism, CNN reports.

However, their asylum bid was rejected this year, and a deportation order was signed off in September, even though the family say their lives may be at risk if they return to Armenia.

They then appealed the decision under the so-called “children’s pardon”, which gives residency to refugee children and their families who have been in the country for more than five years. This also failed.

Theo Hettema, chairman of the General Council of Protestant Ministers in the Netherlands, told CNN the service will continue “as long as it’s necessary”.

“We want to love God and our neighbour. And we thought that this was a clear opportunity to put the love for our neighbour into reality,” he said.

“The purpose of the ‘Asylum Church’ is to create [a place of] safety for the family,” the church said in a statement. “We invite politicians to discuss with us the family’s fate.”

The Dutch immigration service said it does not comment on individual cases.

Former Arsenal and Manchester United striker Robin van Persie has said that this season is likely to be his last in professional football.

The 35-year-old, who currently plays in Holland for Feyenoord, revealed his plans in an interview with Dutch publication AD.

He said: “When I have to stop? That is probably at the end of this season. I will be 36-years-old and will have been a professional for 18 years. From the age of five, I’ve only been involved in football.”

Van Persie started his career with Feyenoord before joining Arsenal in 2004. In his eight-year spell with the Gunners he scored 132 goals in 278 games, Sky Sports reports.

In 2012 he left Arsenal for rivals Manchester United in a controversial £24m deal. He won the Premier League title at Old Trafford before joining Turkish side Fenerbahce three years later.

Now back at Feyenoord the striker has scored nine goals in 16 games this season. He was also capped 102 times by the Netherlands, scoring 50 international goals - an all-time record for his country.

Van Persie’s best goals

During his career Van Persie has scored some truly memorable goals. Highlights include a magnificent volley for Arsenal against Charlton in the Premier League in 2006-07 and another volley for Manchester United against Aston Villa in 2013.

The strike against Villa, set up by a brilliant long-distance pass from Wayne Rooney, was the second of a superb hat-trick that helped United secure their 20th title.

However, perhaps his best ever goal will be the flying header for Holland at the 2014 World Cup. It was the first of five goals Holland scored against Spain in the 5-1 victory in Brazil.

How the media reacted to the news on Twitter

A Dutch artist is facing criticism for an art installation that gives visitors the chance to pose as the victims of Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State terrorist known as Jihadi John, who was filmed beheading prisoners.

The piece, Phantom Pain, went on show at the Gogbot art and music festival in Enschede last week and “is an imitation of a fairground picture board with face holes”, says The Times.

Emwazi is shown wielding a knife and preparing to cut the throat of whoever puts their face in the hole.

One critic said that Anne Bothmer’s work “needlessly brought festival visitors, including children, face to face with terrorism”, adds the paper.

But Bothmer defended her right to stimulate discussion through a provocative approach, saying that “lorries driving into crowds, bombings and shootings” caused a “massive stream of irrational reactions”.

She said: “As a spectator of these attacks we do not want to experience it, but we want to be part of it. The overarching tone of the messages within the aftermath amplifies a feeling of collective victimisation by European citizens.

“However, in comparison there were only a few who were really present at the attacks and the rest of Europe only perceived them through cinematic and photographic imagery.”

As soon as the work was unveiled “local politicians from different parties called for the removal of the IS artwork”, reports the Daily Mail.

Arjan Brouwer, of Democratic Platform Enschede, said: “We call urgently upon the mayor to act and remove this element of Gogbot immediately from the event.

“This picture of genocide does not belong at this event and needlessly confronts our inhabitants and children with terrorism, human suffering and traumatic experiences which they went through in the country they fled from.”

The festival organisation and the mayor of Enschede are yet to respond.

A Dutch follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been denied the right wear a colander on her head in her passport photo, after a court ruled Pastafarianism was not a religion.

The Netherlands’ highest court ruled that Mienke de Wilde could not be exempted on religious grounds from a ban on headwear in official identity photographs, because Pastfarianism was essentially a satire and not a serious faith.

Formed in the US in 2005 in response to the teaching of creationism in schools, Pastafarians worship an invisible and undetectable god called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, wear colanders on their heads in homage, advocate the teaching of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, vow to be nice to all sentient beings and eat a lot of pasta. They also conclude their prayers with “Ramen” rather than “Amen” and their heaven has a stripper factory and beer volcano.

Officially recognised by the New Zealand government, which approved it to conduct marriages in 2015, “the church’s status is disputed in many other countries”, says The Guardian, “although several have allowed followers to wear colanders or pirate outfits for ID photographs”.

In handing down its ruling, the Dutch court said: “It is important to be able to criticise religious dogma freely through satire but that does not make such criticism a serious religion,” adding that Pastafarianism lacked the “seriousness and coherence” required of a religion.

De Wilde is now considering taking her case to the European court of human rights.

The government of the Netherlands is to close a further four of the nation’s prisons as crime rates hit their lowest level since 1980.

According to the Dutch national statistics office CBS, there are now just 49 crimes reported for every 1,000 citizens per year.

Sources told Rotterdam-based newspaper Algemeen Dagblad that prisons in Zoetermeer, Zeist, Almere and Zwaag are to be shut down by Justice Minister Sander Dekker.

The Netherlands has closed a number of its jails in recent years amid plummeting crime rates. In 2013, 19 of the country’s prisons were axed because there weren’t enough criminals to fill them, according to The Independent. A further five were shut down last year.

The DutchNews site reports that, in the face of mass job losses, the 2013 closures “led to a storm of protest from prison workers, [so] the government began ‘importing’ prisoners from Belgium and Norway to fill the gap and keep some prisons open”.

Only 700 of the 2,000 prison workers affected by the 2017 closures were moved to other roles within Dutch law enforcement.

The statistics make for damning reading for Theresa May’s government, amid rising fears about the “crisis” of Britain’s packed prisons, The Guardian says. Two-thirds of the country’s jails are officially overcrowded, the newspaper reports.

An investigation by The Observer in February found that of 118 UK prisons subject to official inspections, 68% were providing “unsatisfactory standards in at least one respect, with two in five jails deemed to be unacceptably unsafe”.

Lord Woolf, the former lord chief justice, told the newspaper that overcrowding urgently needed to be tackled.

“I’m afraid we’ve got to have a complete reassessment of the situation,” Woolf said. “Whenever there is a particularly nasty crime, what Parliament wants to do is have a new offence and put sentences up, and so we go on.”

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Politics programme last month, Prisons Minister Rory Stewart said that the Government was looking at ways to reduce prison overcrowding, and that he was calling for a “massive reduction” in the number of people sent to prison for a short sentence.

The Netherlands-based Party for Freedom (PVV) is to hold a competition inviting its members to draw cartoons depicting Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

The party, led by anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, is the main opposition in the Dutch parliament, after coming second in elections in March last year.

“Dutch Counter-terrorism Agency NCTV gives green light to Muhammad cartoon contest in secured PVV quarters of Dutch Parliament later this year,” Wilders tweeted yesterday, along with a Mohammed cartoon.

“So that’s what we’re going to do and organize! With cartoonist/ex-Muslim Bosch Fawstin! Freedom of speech is most important of all!!”

Cartoons and other depictions of Mohammad have provoked violent responses in the past.

In 2015, fundamentalist Islamic gunmen stormed the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people, after the publication printed unflattering cartoons of the Prophet.

In 2005, the publication in a Danish newspaper of a dozen cartoons depicting Mohammad “led to violent protests across the Muslim world”, Reuters says.

Wilders has used his political platform to call for the Koran to be banned in the Netherlands. Russia Today reports that he “has long planned to host such a competition”, but had “previously been prevented from doing so”.

“He has attended a number of exhibits and events focused on mocking the Islamic prophet – usually billed as free speech events,” the news channel adds.

Why you should visit Rotterdam

Often overshadowed by its “bigger sibling” Amsterdam, Rotterdam has suffered from the “PR problem” known as “second city syndrome”, said Lilit Marcus in Vogue. Amsterdam lite? Hardly. Each city has “distinctly positive attributes”, not to mention “a totally different vibe”. Heavily bombed during the Second World War, Rotterdam has had an opportunity to rebuild as a “strikingly modern” city full of “cutting-edge design”. Simply put, Rotterdam is a European “capital of cool”.

It’s long been Europe’s biggest industrial port, but these days Rotterdam is a hub of “avant-garde architecture”, said Seth Sherwood in The New York Times. Filled with excellent art institutions, it has become an “essential European cultural stop” and after a few days here you’ll agree that what it lacks in historical buildings, it “more than makes up for with contemporary urban cool”.

Rotterdam is “not for nostalgia seekers”, said Mike MacEacheran in The Times. The “prime reward” for visitors is “eye-popping” design, including cube houses, a “vertical city of Tetris towers”, and industrial monuments. What “strikes you most” is how Rotterdam “goes out of its way to be different to Amsterdam”.

Top attractions and things to do

Euromast

To get your bearings, go up the Euromast, a 185m-tall tower that has superb 360-degree views of the city and harbour. Attractions include the Euroscoop panorama elevator with glass floor and a stylish restaurant. The park “down below” at the base of the Euromast, said Foder’s, is where “many Rotterdammers spend time when the weather is good”.

Cube houses

Constructed by architect Piet Blom in the 1980s, Rotterdam’s cube houses are a “curious and magnificent architectural wonder”, said All That’s Interesting. Part of the city’s design heritage, said Uniq Hotels, the unique structure on Overblaak Street was built above the Blaak metro station and a pedestrian bridge. The “innovative” cube buildings are angled at 45-degrees, “giving them the iconic looks that made them so famous”.

Erasmus Bridge

Nicknamed “The Swan”, the 800m-long Erasmus Bridge resembles a harp and “towers over Europe’s largest harbour”, said Nomadic Matt. From the bridge, you can spot the iconic cube houses as well as the Art Nouveau-style Witte Huis. Walk “a little further” and you can explore the “charming” Delfshaven neighbourhood. Linking the northern and southern parts of Rotterdam, the Erasmus Bridge was named by USA Today as one of the world’s “most spectacular new bridges”.

Museums and galleries

Rotterdam’s chief “starchitect” is Rem Koolhaas, and it was the Kunsthal that made his name. Part of a culture-fringed green space called Museumpark, this terrific gallery slowly spirals upwards via a series of long ramps. Its ever-changing exhibitions are as likely to focus on hyperrealist body sculpture as primitive cave art.

Discovering “awesome” cultural experiences in Rotterdam is “rarely difficult”, said Tom Coggins on Culture Trip. Highlights include Kijk-Kubus, known as the “show cube”, and Nederlands Fotomuseum, which is dedicated to the “preservation of every aspect of Dutch and international photography”. The modern Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, a “monstrous” art gallery, is being “completely reinvented for 2026”, said MacEacheran in The Times. “In the meantime”, there’s The Depot next door, the world’s first public art storage facility and a “plant pot-shaped vault” home to the museum’s 151,000 works.

Oude Haven and Maritime District

Rotterdam’s Old Harbor (Oude Haven) is part of the city’s “revitalised” Maritime District, said Bryan Dearsley on PlanetWare. The boat basin is filled with “restored historic boats”, including houseboats lived in by locals. Nearby attractions include the Maritime Museum.

Take a Watertaxi

Order a Watertaxi – they work like Ubers – to see Rotterdam’s floating farms and harp-like bridges while bouncing across the Maas River.

Shopping and markets

Pannekoekstraat is a small street filled with “cute boutiques, nice little restaurants and unique shops”, said Inside Rotterdam. Shopping hotspots in “Rotterdam’s SoHo” include “lovely little boutique” Louen, which sells a collection that’s “a bit Danish and also a bit Dutch”, and Pantoufle, which sells items that are “made with care to last”.

Located in historic Laurenskwartier in the heart of the city, the multicoloured horseshoe-shaped Markthal opened in 2014. It is the largest covered market in Europe and home to a permanent market, around 100 fresh food stalls, 15 food shops, a variety of restaurants and 228 apartments. When entering this “magnificent” building, said Travel and Home, you understand why everyone advises you to go there. “It is a jaw-dropping moment.” Other markets in Rotterdam worth checking out include Market Binnenrotte, Market Afrikaanderplein, Biological Market and Rotterdamse Oogstmarkt.

Eating and drinking: best restaurants and bars

The city is “awash” with experimental restaurants, said Sherwood in The New York Times, including Fermin, which “gets clever with fermented, pickled and wood-fired dishes”, and In de Keuken van Floris, where you feel as though you’re dining in an “enchanted forest”.

In the Michelin Guide, three restaurants in Rotterdam have been awarded two stars, 15 have one star, 17 have a Bib Gourmand, and two have a green star. Situated in arches below a disused railway line, Francois Geurds’s FG Restaurant boasts two Michelin stars and next door’s one-star FG Food Labs is the chef’s experimental kitchen.

Though the pulsating Witte de Withstraat is Rotterdam’s nightlife nexus, treasures await further afield. If the sun’s out, head south to the hipster haunt Fenix Food Factory and gaze across the Maas from salvaged-wood deckchairs.

Places to stay: best hotels and accommodation

Dubbed “the Manhattan on the Maas”, there are plenty of places to stay in “ultra-modern” Rotterdam, said The Telegraph, and two hotels – Room Mate Bruno and nhow Rotterdam – get a 9/10 rating by the paper’s experts. With its “edgy” design and “explosive” use of colour, the second Room Mate outpost “makes a bold statement” as does the nhow with its “striking architecture, minimalist rooms and a sense of fun”.

A city landmark and one of Rotterdam’s “grand dames”, the Hotel New York occupies a historic building in a “peerless, riverfront location”, said The Hotel Guru. For “canal-side cool”, head to the boutique Suite Hotel Pincoffs, a “laid back spot right on Rotterdam’s trendy left bank”.

You can even stay overnight in the Euromast tower in one of two special suites, “Heaven” and “Stars”. But “be warned”, said Foder’s, the prices are “as high as the experience”. An overnight stay for two people, including breakfast and a bottle of champagne starts from €395 (excluding 6.5% city tax).

Transport: how to get to Rotterdam

Rotterdam The Hague Airport has direct UK flights from London City (British Airways) and Edinburgh (Transavia). If you prefer to travel by sea, you can take a daily ferry to Rotterdam from Hull in East Yorkshire. The journey with P&O Ferries takes around 11 hours.

For all hotels around the globe, location is without doubt a make or break factor. In New York City, hedonistic - and perhaps foolish - punters will shell out a small fortune to sleep in the shadow of Times Square, while in London, any room within a mile of Big Ben will fetch over-the-odds for those seeking an action-packed city break.

But even if your hotel were suspended atop St Paul’s Cathedral, the feeling of centrality - of being “in the mix” - it offered would likely pale in comparison to one of Amsterdam’s grandest hotels: the Conservatorium.

The Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Concertgebouw, Vondelpark, and even the I ❤️ Amsterdam sign are all within one minute’s walk from the doors of this elegant 19th-century building.

Respectful of its heritage, The Conservatorium Hotel incorporates an unusually large percentage of its host building’s The hotel's red brick facade. Award-winning designer and architect Piero Lissoni retained the core of the existing structure while adding contemporary touches to its interior.

Nowhere is the Lissoni's vision more evident than in the hotel’s main atrium. Opened in 2011 it houses a vast communal area where guests check in, eat breakfast, listen to live music or just sit and watch other patrons come and go.

Swallowing the courtyard that was once at the rear of the building, Lissoni has converted the atrium into a colossal jumble of angular lines intersecting one another, from the zig-zagging lighting rig above the hotel’s Brasserie & Lounge restaurant, to the obsidian countertops of the reception and check-in desk.

Although no two Lissoni projects look alike, his style is evident throughout the hotel - bright, vivid splashes of colour punctuating muted tones, such as the atrium’s lime green armchairs, or the sunset yellow desk framed by the otherwise subdued palette of my duplex room.

Originally a bank before its conversion into a prestigious music conservatory, the Conservatorium Hotel has hints of the past throughout, including century-old motifs of piggy banks, honey bees and spider webs in the tiling.

The hotel’s 129 rooms exhibit an variety of layouts, all of which use the original building’s high ceilings in different ways. My split-level duplex room crams in an almost treehouse-like sleeping area above the living room and bathroom situated on the floor below. With 25ft-high blackout curtains, warm wooden floors and wall-mounted surround sound bluetooth speakers, the room offers guests a snug, homely space to retreat to each night.

Meanwhile the hotel’s larger rooms - some of which reach up to 170 sq metres - are more flamboyant, the most notable example of which is the Conservatorium’s Van Baerle Suite. With almost five metre high ceilings and white walls, the Van Baerle is undoubtedly the brightest, airiest room in the building.

But the I Love Amsterdam Suite - nestled in the converted roof of the original building - is the real showstopper, with wooden beams framing this triplex apartment in a deep brown, interrupting the otherwise off-white hues of this appealing room. From the cuboid sunken bath to the ornate iron spiral staircase, this suite is the most lavish offering at the Conservatorium.

And that’s not all - after a day of biking, boating or strolling through the streets of the city, guests in this suite can climb up to their own private 360-degree viewing platform to sip champagne while looking out across the city.

Downstairs under the glass ceiling of the atrium, the Brasserie & Lounge serves up a shifting menu throughout the day. In the mornings the restaurant offers no-nonsense breakfast options, the highlights of which include a pitch-perfect eggs royale topped with salmon roe, and a solid shakshuka.

For dinner, the brasserie offers cote de veau, snow crab and royal cabanon oysters, or for a less local option, guests can book into the hotel’s contemporary Asian restaurant Taiko, named after a Japanese drum - another sly nod to the building’s past as a music conservatory.

Opened in 2014 and headed by Amsterdam native Schilo van Coevorden, Taiko delivers Japanese and pan-Asian food, with red king crab - its “ingredient of the year” - popping up on its nigiri, sushi and sashimi menus.

Those open to the more daring side of Japanese cuisine can opt for one of the two “Omakase” menus, named for the Japanese concept that roughly translates to “I’ll leave it up to you”. Needless to say, you never know quite what you’re going to get with these mammoth 12-course culinary undertakings.

Buried deep in the basement, the soundproofed Akasha wellness centre is one of the most tranquil spas in Amsterdam, offering a roomy sauna, a blue-green marble hammam and a heated pool. It also features a range of spa treatments, from facials to hot sea shell massages.

The Conservatorium offers a respectful kind of innovation, taking a building steeped in history and cultural significance and turning it into a grand, ultra-modern luxury hotel. Stately yet fashionable, the Conservatorium cuts no corners.

The Conservatorium Amsterdam, Van Baerlestraat 27, 1071 Amsterdam; conservatoriumhotel.com