Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to ScottY,
I cannot see the party choosing as leader anyone who cannot win their electorate seat
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I don’t have a dog (or a vote) in this hunt, but this would be the same party that was perfectly relaxed with Michael Cullen not being demoted when he went list-only in 1999, and remained so for the entire term of the Fifth Labour Government, yes? Sorry for being a looped MP3 on this, but anyone who thinks “not winning an electorate seat” is a disqualification for high office should also be campaigning for the repeal of MMP. But as I said, I don’t get a say and I assume Labour will be conducting their leadership election by secret ballot so the motives of the people involved are their own.
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Hard News: Market Wisdom, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
The Avondale Market is indeed a great experience but you firstly have to navigate a corridor of tat (bundles of nylon socks and plastic doo-dads) until it opens up into a vista of fruit, veg and food stalls
Sure, but the "tat" is part of the experience. When we were in Amsterdam, we stumbled over the Albert Cuypmarkt while in a state of extreme Rijksmuseum-induced art fatigue. :) I could have come home with a container-load of affordable hooker-chic and gee-gaws but it was fascinating. (Would have taken more photos, but a LOT of the stalls had 'no photographs, please' signs on prominent display - so the 'don't be a pervy dick' rule applied.) I'm drawn to any secondhand bookstall, even if I can't read them and they smell funny. :)
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Hebe,
That’s the problem for those of us who would like to support Labour but cannot see how a party fighting quarter-century old ideological battles among itself can unify and run the country.
Except if you don’t have those tensions going on, you know what you get? The current mutation of the GOP, where Roland fricking Regan wouldn’t be able to pass the Tea Bagger/Theocon sniff test. Or even worse, and closer to home: New Zealand First, where it seems any incompetent sleazebag can get into caucus, as long as you’re sufficiently slavish in your devotion to Winston.
If you want to be a ‘big tent’ centerist political party, rather than a personality cult or some holding pen for swivel-eyed ideologues, then you’re going to have to figure out how to deal with sharp differences on policy etc. OTOH, there’s also the idea that a lot of grown-up politics (like life) is about coming down in a place nobody is entirely happy with, but everyone can more or less live with.
Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but I think that's something Helen Clark has never gotten full credit for. Was her pragmatism always a virtue -- inarguably not, IMO, but I think she was more of a consensus-builder than her popular image (and the persona she crafted for herself) allowed.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
What I'd love to know is how you make your arse shiny. Wax? A protective laminate? Daily applications of olive oil?
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Then perhaps you could accept that “Labour”, like “National”, isn’t one person and that attributing a single emotional state to a large group is both insulting and wrong.
Um, you do know where you are and who you're talking to, right? I'm not only fully accepting of that, but wouldn't mind a bit more of that love coming my way from time to time.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Stephen Judd,
What’s indulgent is standing on the sidelines, sanctimoniously carping at the way people do work you want done but can’t be arsed doing yourself.
Woah, that was snippy to an unwarranted degree wasn't it? I think Sasha and I get that we don't have a direct vote in the Labour leadership (or National or any other political party) but here's an idea. If Labour does win the next election, we all have to accept whoever you select as our head of government. And we do actually get to express a view on that.
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Who the party chooses to replace him will clearly be important. Just as important will be his caucus’s ability to demonstrate common purpose from here on.
No, it's actually going to be more important. Diamonds are a girl's best friend, but the best friend any politician can have is a battle where the other side are too busy knifing each other to put up any kind of coherent resistance. Just ask Messers Abbot and Rudd, who, in their own ways, are probably missing having Julia Gillard as a distraction from their own various vacuities.
In a way, I don't actually give a shit who the next leader of the opposition is. But everyone should care a lot about whether whoever it is manages to refocus the Opposition on doing their job -- which is not to keep the Press Gallery amused, but at least try to act as a meaningful check and balance on the government. Whatever else you say about Helen Clark, at least she manage to pull off that magic trick with considerable flair.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Hebe,
She is not far enough along in experience to handle leading a main party, and potentially being Prime Minister.
But David Lange was? He became leader of the Opposition during his second full term as an MP, and was Prime Minister six months later. I’m not sure it would be entirely fair to blame all the problems of the Fourth Labour Government on his inexperience.
Also pertinent, I’ve got Kerry-Ann Walsh’s ‘The Stalking of Julia Gillard’ on the nightstand. (Spoiler: Don’t bet the farm that Walsh would hit the brakes if Kevin Rudd walked in front of her car.) Twelve years as an MP, a raft of ministerial posts, and terms as the deputy leader of her party and deputy Prime Minister didn’t mean shit when a large chunk of her own party and the media decided to turn her into a human knife block.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to nzlemming,
And maybe we can stop regarding Tom as the sine qua non of the Labour party, eh, mon vieux?
Fine, but I wish he was the only person I've heard this particular homophobic dog-whistle from. Not that I actually get a vote either way, but I actually give Labour-voting Pasifika a bit more credit and can't find much evidence the homosexual mafia that spoiled the last two elections for Labour exist anywhere except Su'a William Sio's fervid imagination.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
It unites the two biggest factions. With all those PI voters who Labour need to get to the polls in 2014 needing some convincing, Labour electing a gay Wellington based machine politician as leader would be a disaster.
You know, Tom, perhaps the homophobic Watakere Man wing of the Labour Party need to stop using Pasifika as human shields for their own feckless fuckery, and expecting the queers to STFU until it comes time to open their chequebooks and work the hustings.
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