In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Brandpunt Politiek Café was a sought-after platform for prominent politicians and key representatives of societal organizations. I presented the show, usually alongside Ton Verlind. Later, colleague Jan Driessen also became one of the interviewers.

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The broadcasts came from the Hague café Schlemmer and later Hotel des Indes. In the early series, well-known political journalists regularly joined us: Jan Tromp (Volkskrant), Willem Breedveld (Trouw), and Arendo Joustra (Elsevier). Columnists like Jules Deelder and Midas Dekkers also appeared, often playing a free, and thus generally bold, role.

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It was live and exciting because, thoroughly prepared, we aimed to operate on the cutting edge. Our starting point was that we would not settle for easy answers. Nervous spokespersons made it clear that this coveted stage was also feared. Although, admittedly, we did not always manage to excel in live interviews.

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A good example: the toughest guest proved to be Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, known for his verbal fog. It’s a curious fact—during the broadcast, we felt the man communicated clearly. But when we later transcribed the interview, we concluded his arguments were essentially completely incomprehensible.

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Much later, Pim Fortuyn would describe the prominent political class as “people who talk with flour in their mouths.” Often, that was true. When Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin spent a full ten minutes dancing around all the hot topics, Ton Verlind looked at me discouraged and said, “You try, Fons.” The broadcast was smothered in cartloads of flour.

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Brandpunt Politiek Café was more reckless than today’s tightly formatted talk shows. But it had one major advantage: it was so unpolished that you never knew what might happen.