In the conservative TV hit Today Inside, Frans Timmermans gets a slap on the wrist every day from a different table guest and this time it’s Rutger Castricum’s turn. “Incomprehensible!”
The most watched talk show in the country is back and the men of Today Inside immediately set the tone: they portrayed Frans Timmermans on Monday as Vader Abraham, with a bowler hat and all. As someone who wants to turn us all into a kind of green smurfs. But Gargamel from Rutger Castricum is happy to put a stop to that.
Big blunder
Rutger finds it ridiculous that the intended party leader of GroenLinks-PvdA ‘is going to campaign at the expense of the European taxpayer’, as The Telegraph it calls. After his self-elected departure as European Commissioner, he will make use of a generous Brussels redundancy pay scheme.
This is simply not possible, Rutger blurts out Inside today. “It is incomprehensible. It really is the very first major blunder of PvdA-GroenLinks as far as I’m concerned. He will keep three hundred thousand euros until the elections and then he will see what salary he will receive. If that is a Chamber salary, he will receive a ton and it will be supplemented. Two years!”
‘Not going to fall well’
Frans will get a lot of attention in the media, Rutger expects. “It’s awkward. If a VVD member were to do it, it would already be strange and you would already condemn it, but a man from PvdA-GroenLinks, that will of course not go down well in the coming months.”
He continues: “You earn three hundred thousand euros for nine years… If you then start a campaign for PvdA-GroenLinks for four months, then have the prospect of a salary and you are simply from the club that stands up for poverty… At least put that Stop. Then you do it for four months without a salary. Surely that should be possible?”
Wilfred Genee: “I think so too.”
John with the cap
Johan Derksen fully agrees with Rutger. “It is very bad for public opinion what he does for a socialist party, which has to put on a hat for the normal Jan. He just fills his pockets.”
Rutger: “It has gone to his head a bit. It’s with a lot of disdain and I hope he shakes that off.”