Lucille Werner was hurt live on television last night by a rather harsh joke from Hugo de Jonge, her colleague at the CDA. She was visibly touched. “This is very clumsily said.”
Lucille Werner is leaving politics after a period of four years. In her own words, she likes to hit some stakes in all her jobs and then leave it to others. Apparently the surface in Hilversum was a lot rougher than The Hague, because she has been doing Lingo for about 43 years. “Green ball!”
Hard joke
Lucille sat at Humberto Tan’s talk show table last night to look back on her short career as a Member of Parliament. She was treated by reporter Jaïr Ferwerda to a number of reactions from prominent people, including that of her own fellow party member Hugo de Jonge. But his response was not really to the taste.
When Hugo hands out some compliments, Jaïr warns him about a very close passing car. Then the minister jokes, referring to Lucille’s disability: “Thank you for protecting me from running over, otherwise I would have ended up here with a disability.”
‘What a crazy man’
It leads to an uneasy atmosphere in Humberto’s studio. Table guest Roxane Knetemann: “What a crazy man he is. What kind of silly comment is that!”
Humberto: “Yes, huh?”
Roxane: “I don’t even know what he said, sorry. I lingered for a while.”
Humberto: “I can repeat: ‘Thank you for saving me, for not getting a disability too.’”
Roxane: “Yes, so that stuck.”
Lucille hit
Lucille is visibly touched. “What I find complicated about this is that people with disabilities should be seen as potential. As people who can do something, who can be happy and not as pathetic, vulnerable or an object of concern. You know, it’s a pity that it is said that way, even though I know Hugo well, of course.”
Humberto: “He doesn’t mean it that way, but it’s very awkwardly said.”
Lucille: “He doesn’t mean it that way, he certainly doesn’t mean it that way, but it is a bit – I have to be honest – awkwardly said.”
‘Clumsy pronunciation’
Humberto: “What he says in that joke is the core that you have been committed to for years. To look at what people can do instead of what they can’t. But if that is already so difficult within your party, because it turns out, how is it for the rest of the Netherlands?”
Lucille: “I think we should separate that. I think this is indeed a clumsy statement, but it is a given. I mean: we have such an enormous disadvantage and exclusion of people with disabilities in this country and also in The Hague.”
VI screeches
The fragment from Humberto was also broadcast shortly afterwards in Today Inside, where the gentlemen had to chuckle about it. “That’s not so happy this! Boy, oh, boy,” laughs Wilfred Genee.
Hélène Hendriks: “He often makes statements like this!”
Johan Derksen: “If you l*lt a lot, you also say a lot of wrong things. I know all about that.”
Wilfred: “Unbelievable all.”
Fragment
The excerpt from Humberto: