Reinette Klever, the former minister for foreign trade and development aid on behalf of Geert Wilders’s Freedom party, navigated her mere 11 months in office with relative ease and minimal controversy. She amiably took part in business missions and state visits, and even managed to deliver on several of the policy shifts promised in the four-party coalition agreement until the government collapsed in June.

Among her policy shifts was a substantial reduction in Dutch overseas development across the board. Miraculously, this provoked scarcely a murmur from the left. The number of target countries and aid programmes were slashed to those directly serving Dutch interests, such as on cooperation on migration control and tackling cross-border crime. And, echoing Washington’s DOGE initiative, the funding tap was closed for programmes on women’s rights, gender equality, education and culture.

For all the noise it has provoked, the Dutch-Uganda plan is remarkably modest and reasonable

Intriguingly, this radical overhaul of overseas development aid sailed through both chambers of parliament with surprising ease. Across Europe – and indeed in Britain, where aid was cut in order to fund defence – overseas development appears to be in retreat. Perhaps the aid industry is no longer a sacred cow of the left;........

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