Geert Wilders' PVV expected to finish as second largest party in the Netherland in yesterday's elections

Geert Wilders' PVV has come second in the Dutch general election held yesterday, leaving the incumbent VVD the largest party albeit with a big slump in the number of seats.

It will take time to finish counts and calculate seats won under proportional representation but it would appear that the VVD will come out with 31-33 seats (down from 41) whilst PVV will increase their 8 seats to 20. The PvdA (Labour) are expected to drop from 38 seats to 9.

There was much speculation prior to the election that the PVV could win the election as resentment toward uncontrolled immigration and the cost of propping up the EU and €uro have increase. And Wilders was expected to benefit from Rutte's government ignored last year's referendum result on Turkish visa free travel a couple of weeks ago and the Turkish government denounced the Netherlands and Dutch people over the last week or so.

But the Dutch are a funny lot. They are fantastic people but they are liberal to the point of destruction. Another Rutte government is a disaster for the Netherlands but that's democracy for you.

Rutte described the PVV as "the wrong type of populism". In the EU, populism has become a dirty word but it would be interesting to know how you can have the wrong type of doing what ordinary voters want which is what populism means.

Geert Wilders brings down Dutch government

The Dutch Prime Minister has resigned, triggering an election after Geert Wilders withdrew support for a €16bn EU-imposed austerity programme.

Wilders' Freedom Party isn't part of the ruling coalition but Mark Rutte's minority government relied on their support to govern.

The Dutch economy is one of the strongest in Europe and their national debt is only 65% of GDP which is about 7 and a half times smaller than the UK but their budget deficit is expected to top 4.7% which is way above the EU's one size fits all target of 3%.

It will be a few weeks to organise an election, during which time a caretaker government can inflict some EU-mandated damage as their neighbours in Belgium found out.