Sigrid Kaag arouses quite a bit of annoyance at Merel Ek. The reporter of Hart van Nederland, also known from Today Inside, has the feeling that the leader of D66 is trying to avoid her.
D66 leader Sigrid Kaag is currently in the news because she has been confronted with torch protesters. Many media got her in front of the camera yesterday, but the popular Heart of the Netherlands was initially avoided, reporter Merel Ek revealed last night at the talk show table of HLF8.
Merel complains
Hostess Hélène Hendriks: “I assume you spoke to Kaag today.”
Merel complaining: “Well, we really wanted that, but there was no answer to the question whether we could speak to her and then it turned out that the NOS had spoken to her and RTL as well. There was a small moment at Finance when there was time for it, but SBS was not informed of that.”
Hélène: “So you’re being excluded a bit?”
‘Not first time’
Merel: “Well, that… Yes, well, look: you can never look into people’s heads, but if you put out a question early in the morning whether you can speak to her, logically in response to those torches and that demonstration and then NOS and RTL can speak to her, but we cannot, then I wonder why that is indeed the case.
Hélène: “And it’s not the first time, is it?”
Merel: “That’s not the first time, no.”
Kudos to Peacock
Sigrid Kaag was a guest in Khalid & Sophie last night, just before the broadcast of HLF8. What stood out? Merel: “That Jeroen Pauw asked the questions of which you are curious if that is the case.”
She continues: “He also asked her, after talking about how she had experienced it and whether she felt intimidated, whether she also thought she was responsible for the dissatisfaction that those people feel. She didn’t reflect on that at all. She often doesn’t.”
Still a quote
Merel thinks people’s concerns are justified. “There is indeed dissatisfaction and these people are actually desperate. They just have big problems and we see that more in the country, of course.”
A little later in the broadcast, Merel hears that her colleague Sam Hagens has interviewed the politician after all. “Sam has finally spoken to Kaag. Not as a result of what I just said, that people are going to look for something behind it, but they spoke to her anyway, so tonight in Hart van Nederland a quote from Kaag.
