Holland - long seen as a liberal, pot-smoking hippie hang-out - seems keen to defend the culture that’s made it so free, to judge from this week’s election:

With 88 per cent of the votes counted, published partial results showed the Liberals with 31 and Labour on 30.

Geert Wilders, leader of the PVV, the extreme right wing anti muslim party in the Netherlands, visits the queen for consultation.

After the general election every party leader visits the queen for consultation. The center-right Liberal Party of Marke Rutte emerged for the first time as the largest single party, with 31 seats in the 150-seat legislature, and was first to visit the queen for consultation. Rutte's party was followed by the Labour Party, with 30 seats. The Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, which opposes what it calls the "Islamization" of the Netherlands, improved its position significantly, becoming the third-largest party in the parliament, by jumping from 9 to 24 seats.