A journalist has revealed that murdered Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn asked filmmaker and journalist Theo van Gogh whether he would accept the post of Minister of Culture.

Writer and columnist Theodor Holman, who was a close friend of Van Gogh’s, spoke about the offer in an interview on the Naples by Night radio programme on Saturday.

Mr Fortuyn apparently posed the question in 2002, when he was heading for a major election victory. However, he was murdered in May of that year and his offer went no further. Van Gogh was himself murdered in November 2004.

Theodor Holman said that if the filmmaker had ever become minister, he would immediately have scrapped film subsidies.

To read more about Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, click here.

Photo of Theo van Gogh from Wikimedia Commons