TIMES ONLINE: The Dutch anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders arrives in Britain today on the crest of an electoral triumph that could mean him entering government in a matter of months.
Mr Wilders’s Freedom Party made big gains in Dutch local elections this week, widely regarded as a dress rehearsal for the national poll on June 9.
He has been invited to the House of Lords by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the UKIP leader, to show his controversial film Fitna. This has already provoked widespread anger for its crude juxtaposition of extremist atrocities, such as beheadings and the 9/11 attacks, with verses from the Koran.
The Freedom Party, founded by Mr Wilders in 2005, won in the town of Almere, near Amsterdam, and came second in The Hague, the only two places in which it fielded a candidate out of 394 cities and towns, aiming for maximum impact with minimum campaigning.
Opinion polls show Mr Wilders vying for the national lead with the Christian Democrats, whose coalition Government collapsed last month after the Labour Party walked out in a row over keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan. >>> David Charter, Europe Correspondent | Friday, March 05, 2010
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