Early coverage of the Dutch elections has inevitably focused on Geert Wilders – still the bogeyman of the country’s political establishment. Wilders lost seats and saw some of his support drift towards other parties on the right and to the liberal centre of Democrats 66 (D66). His Freedom party and D66 are leading in the polls, with both set to take 26 seats.

Yet the real story lies elsewhere: in the spectacular downfall of former EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans, whose brief and ill-fated return to Dutch politics as leader of the Labour party has ended in a shattering defeat.

Timmermans was as divisive a figure to the Dutch right as Wilders is to the left. In Brussels, as architect of the European Green Deal – that sprawling climate agenda which has brought headaches across Europe to bu

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