Polity by Rob Salmond

Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) stands proudly for the progressive left in Canadian politics. Very few would accuse the NDP of being “Blairite.” (For one thing, it opposed the 2003 Iraq war.) While there’s a tight election campaign on in Canada right now, next month the NDP is most likely to head the Canadian government for the first time.

In the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as UK Labour leader, and the belief that it signals a new era in progressive campaigning, you might think the NDP must be using Corbyn-like tactics, given that it’s performing well.

Those tactics, if the NDP is mimicking Corbyn, would include rejecting appeals to the centre, rejecting professionalized “slick” messaging, and embracing the unvarnished, raw, authentic truth about the party’s radical reforming purpose.

Anything else, we’ve been told, is hackneyed and out-of-date.

If that’s what you expect, then check out the NDP’s website.

It’s like a poster child for every political consultant’s “grow from your base, then reach to the centre” fantasy. Here’s the top line of “Tom’s Plan”:

Middle-class families in Canada are working harder than ever, but falling further behind. It’s clear that Stephen Harper’s plan just isn't working.

That focus on middle-income earners, and on widely shared, optimistic self-images about “hard work” is textbook political strategy, employed by left and right parties alike. Tell swing voters in particular that they’re the most important, tell them they’re great and deserve more, and if you’re the challenger tell them the incumbent is failing them.

The NDP’s number one specific issue is “jobs,” again focused on “the middle class.” Tom Mulcair’s got a four-point plan:

• Champion manufacturing jobs and growth with concrete action to protect Canada’s auto and aerospace industries.

• Reduce small business taxes from 11% to 9% to help the sector that creates 80 percent of all new private sector jobs in Canada.
• Invest in infrastructure and transit to create jobs, reduce commute times and get Canada’s economy moving.
• Create opportunities for 40,000 young Canadians through NGO and private sector training partnerships.

Tom Mulcair’s concrete, long-term plan will strengthen the middle class by creating good job opportunities in every community in Canada.</q>

It’s hardly Das Kapital.

It’s aimed squarely at middle income earners, and it combines some left ideas (public infrastructure investment, partly to create jobs) with very centrist ideas (business tax cuts).

Across all the issues the NDP highlights, there’s a mix of left ideas and middle-of-the-road ideas. On the left there’s cheaper childcare for all, in the middle there’s a tax cut for small businesses. On the left there’s polluter pays, in the middle there’s investing in innovation.

That’s really important. A left party should present itself as a mirror to swing voters’ self-images and desires on some issues that matter to swing voters. That’s what gives that same party the ability to enact stridently left policy on other issues that matter to the left.

If you go centrist on innovation, you can go left on climate change. If you go centrist on taxes, you can go left on education. And so on.

That’s how a left party wins both the left and the centre.

Winning both the left and the centre is the only way for left parties to win.

To some activists, I’m sure it all looks like Fifty Shades of Beige. They think it’s manufactured pap, a relic of a by-gone age. They think it’s everything Jeremy Corbyn stands against.

Citing Corbyn, some have argue the progressive citizenry now demands conviction politicians who say what they mean, no matter how out of step it might be with swing voters. Swing voters don’t want to see themselves in their politicians, goes the argument. They want only bold, visionary, honest thought-leadership. That – they say – is the left’s only path to victory.

But the NDP is finding another way to win. In an actual, nationwide election, not just a intra-party contest. And when it wins, using traditional reach-to-the-centre methods, it will deliver real progressive change for Canada.

The Canadian left may not get everything it wants, but it will get a lot of things it wants. That’s what victory looks like in a modern democracy.

I remember the 1996 Everest disaster well. It cast a pall over parts of our community that had come to revere the climbing exploits of Rob Hall and his late climbing partner Gary Ball, as a new incarnation of great explorers like Shipton and Hillary 40 years prior.

I had high personal expectations for Everest. I thought it met them. It was at once severe and beautiful. Hard-chiseled and poignant. Lonely and warm. “Enjoy” is the wrong word, but I’m very glad I went.

But the reviews have been mixed. I think that’s partly because lots of film reviewers haven’t ever meet a climber. Sample critique: “Who uses ‘summit’ as a verb?!” (Answer: Climbers.) But some of their critiques were deeper, if similarly misguided

Some critics were angry the female characters didn’t have a bigger role. I understand and agree with the general critique, and I loved the more gender-balanced take on the road movie genre in Mad Max. But this was a historical biopic about eight people who died. Seven were men. The two leaders among the doomed were men, and the two most noteworthy stories among the survivors were men, too. In that context, it can’t be any much of a surprise when it’s a male-heavy movie.

To the critique that the wives’ roles were unfairly reduced to crying over the phone, I’d say first that’s not true because Peach Weathers rustled up a helicopter from Texas while Jan Arnold tried to coax Hall off the mountain from New Zealand. And second, waiting for the phone to ring often is exactly what climbers’ partners do.

Others fretted the character development was thin, especially in act three, with all the protagonists fighting the elements in the Death Zone. Well surprise, surprise! The characters were a bit busy battling a horrific storm to chat with each other about their backstories. Climbing a giant mountain is incredibly isolating and lonely, even when there are other people nearby. Been tramping in a storm, with your hood pulled in around you? Multiply that loneliness by a hundred. That’s the sense I got from Everest.

This was a movie about people who climb like real-life mountaineers. When the going gets tough, they shut up and trudge on or they shut up and sit down. When they die, it’s from the side effects of hypoxia and oedema, not from strangely melty harnesses or exploding backpacks. Looking at you, Cliffhanger and Vertical Limit.

Yes, that means it’s harder to eat popcorn in the movie. Watching people slip into hyperthermia and delusion isn’t as much fun as watching cartoonish caricatures having a needle fight in a crevasse. But it makes the film much more real.

I wonder whether part of the overseas reviewers’ problem was that the protagonist talks like a very New Zealand hero. Understated. Sincere. Soft. Rob Hall projected the image of a rock on the mountain by just being one, not by screaming “I’m a rock on this here mountain!” I think that might be behind The Guardian’s tone-deaf complaint of “there’s no compelling story.”

For the third act of Everest I sat semi-fetal, my mouth hidden behind my arm. I knew what was coming, but I wasn’t prepared for it. I was on a boys’ night out, yet I cried when Rob and Jan talked for the last time.

That’s how it should be. That’s a compelling story. A movie about real people’s tragic deaths should be a time for introspection and emotion. It should be awful to watch. That it was is a feature, not a bug.

Last, the most frequent faux-critique of Everest was that there was no message in it. There was nothing to learn. Whose fault was Everest ‘96? Why do people climb mountains anyway?

The film’s answers to those questions were respectively “dunno” and “piss off.” I reckon they’re appropriate.

There’s so much nobody really knows about what happened on Everest on 10 May 1996. We know one half-remembered side of some crucial conversations, and neither side of others. We can infer a little about some people’s competing motives, but very little  about how they dealt with them. With all that lack of knowledge, it’s not really cool as a screenwriter to go round assigning blame to real people for the deaths of other real people. Their families are watching, too.

And the “why climb” trope has been done over and over again. (Best answer, by the way: JFK) Does every race car movie have to ask “why speed?” Does every space movie ask “why bother?” No.

Moves about mountains can cover things other than moralizing about mountains. Touching the Void was about stamina and partnership. Everest is about tragedy and the light and shade of human nature, and it does a stupendous job.

Parliament’s ridiculous game-playing over the flag started on Monday when John Key planted the idea that if every other party in Parliament agreed to include Red Peak, then he "might" include it.

Of course, National and its hangers-on can easily change the law to do this all by themselves. Why they won’t is a mystery to me. They worked very hard to win the power to do what they want – now they’re refusing to use that power.

To get Red Peak included, Key also demanded that Labour:

… publicly come out and support the process and the change.

Labour has serious concerns about the entire flag referendum process. It isn’t going to disavow its concerns just to make John Key feel better, so wasn’t ever going to sign up to that extra ring-kissing condition.

Labour also wanted to insert the same Yes/No question in the first referendum that we had in both MMP referenda. That would allow people who like the current flag to express that preference, and could save the taxpayer millions if it turned out there was a clear lack-of-appetite for change.

By Tuesday, Andrew Little had offered to meet Key privately to sort everything out and get Red Peak on the ballot. Little had no preconditions to that meeting. In Parliament, Key agreed to the meeting, again without any preconditions.

So, did they meet? Of course not!

Key’s office and Little’s office had informal exchanges trying to set up a time, but Key did not make himself available. Key’s office seemed to think Little wouldn’t attend the meeting until Key gave ground on the Yes/No issue.

This morning, Little wrote to Key clearing up that misconception, saying:

I am happy to meet with you in good faith and without preconditions, in the interests of coming to a common sense solution.

Next step is the leaders meet, right? You’ve got both leaders documented as saying they’re willing to meet,without preconditions, to come to a solution that gets Red Peak on the ballot. Key said so in Parliament, Little said so in writing.

So, did they meet then? Of course not!

Instead, Key talked to reporters about how the lack of a meeting – and everything else besides – was Andrew Little’s fault. The whole thing! Here’s TVNZ’s Katie Bradford:

John Key says if Red Peak isn't on the flag ballot paper it's the sole fault of Andrew Little.

— Katie Bradford (@katieabradford) September 16, 2015

Except there were no preconditions! Little’s letter could not be clearer on that.

Key’s very deliberately playing dumb. He knows full well the difference between a preference – “we want a Yes / No vote in the 1^st referendum,” and a precondition – “we won’t meet until you agree to a Yes / No vote in the 1^st referendum.” If that’s not game-playing, I don’t know what is.

In fact, it is Key who is placing preconditions on the meeting, not Little. His letter to Little on Wednesday says (my emphasis):

… we have indicated a preparedness to meet to discuss the possible including of the Red Peak flag as a fifth option in the upcoming referendum. This willingness to meet is predicated on my consistent position that the other elements of the flag consideration process remain unchanged.

That letter is also very clear. Key refuses to even meet to discuss anything unless Labour agrees to take absolutely everything other than Red Peak off the table.

Then, having placed a condition on the meeting, Key had the gall to falsely tut-tut Labour for … allegedly putting conditions on the meeting.

That move is as brazen as it is dishonest. Key obviously thinks New Zealanders, and the New Zealand media, are gullible fools.

Key’s refusal to make good on his own public undertakings, and his continued transparent attempts to blame Andrew Little for John Key’s compete screw up of this process, is disgraceful.

The longer he goes on, the more likely it is that the flag referendum goes nowhere, and the further his legacy falls away.

So in response to the worst year for refugees since World War 2, New Zealand is offering to take 600 extra refugees over the next two and a half years, over and above its normal quote of 750 a year.

That response is pathetic.

The quota is pathetic, too.

Yes, New Zealand’s a small country, so we probably shouldn’t accept half a million refugees, as Germany has done. But we can still pull our weight, by accepting an appropriate number of refugees given our smaller population.

Problem is, we’re not doing even that. Not even close.

Per head of population, Australia has accepted about twice as many refugees as New Zealand. Same with the US. Yes, you read that right: the United States of America is twice as generous as us.

Ireland, per head of population, is four times as generous as us. The UK is seven times as generous. So is France. Canada is ten times as generous. Germany is 16 times as generous. And Norway is over 19 times as generous as New Zealand, per head of population, when it comes to being welcoming to refugees.

New Zealand is a laggard.

It isn’t about distance – Australia and Canada are a long way from home for most of their refugees, yet they manage to be much more generous than us nonetheless. And it isn’t about wealth, either – New Zealand is almost as churlish when it comes to refugees per dollar of income as it is in refugees per head of population.

It’s actually much simpler than that. New Zealand is a laggard because successive New Zealand governments, National-led and Labour-led alike, decided not to care.

And New Zealand is also a laggard because we, the New Zealand public, are disinterested enough in the world’s poor to let those governments do as little as possible, year after year.

Our quota hasn’t moved for 28 years, while our population as grown 36% and our GDP has more than doubled, in real terms, both overall and per person. There are more of us, we’re richer than ever, and the problem’s worse, but we’ve done precious little more to help. It’s embarrassing.

Sadly, New Zealand’s mean-spirited laziness about helping the world’s most vulnerable isn’t anything new, and it isn’t limited to refugees, either.

Since 1970, New Zealand has stood time and again alongside the rest of the world’s rich countries, promising to spend 0.7% of our national income on overseas aid for the world’s poorest communities.

After 45 years of striving for that goal, where are we?

0.26%. $0.26 out of every $100 we earn as a country. We’re barely a third of the way there.

Again, it’s pathetic.

Again, we’re laggards, languishing in the bottom half of the OECD.

Australians give $0.34 for every $100 they earn. Germans give $0.38. France $0.41, Ireland $0.45. The UK gives $0.72 per $100 of earnings, almost three times as much as New Zealand. And the Swedes and Norwegians give over $1.00 for every $100 they earn – about four times as generous as we New Zealanders.

I disagree with people who think this is purely partisan. There’s been many years of Labour government since 1987, with plenty of missed opportunities to take more refugees, and plenty of lost chances to make good on our aid commitments.

The shame of our lack of compassion extends well beyond the current government. It spreads to every government of every stripe in recent memory.

I also disagree with blowhard idiots like M Hosking of Auckland, who think not doing enough is just too darn hard. We’re not doing enough as a country because we can’t be bothered to do enough. That’s the heart of it.

Finding room for more refugees isn’t hard. Finding money for aid won’t break the bank. Finding the will is the only real barrier.

It’s long past time for New Zealand to double the refugee quota and triple the aid budget.

As a country, we like to talk about how we punch above our weight. Right now, we don’t. Not when it comes to being good, compassionate people on the world stage. We’re pathetic. And that is a stain on all of us.

The annual Wellington on a Plate restaurant fortnight ended yesterday. I didn’t have a single dish. That’s because the annual Burger Wellington competition also ended yesterday, and I had eleven of those instead.

Nearly 100 restaurants put up an offering in Burger Wellington, mainly matched with hipster-level craft beer from Aro Valley’s Garage Project.

I refused chicken and vegetarian burgers on principle. This principle is so powerful that it’s not necessary to talk about it. Among the remaining surf and/or turf selection, amusing titles sent places up my list, while pretentious descriptions sent them sliding off the bottom, no matter how amazing their restaurant is otherwise. If you’re going to call your fries “WBC chipped potatoes,” or say your salad greens are “Cuba St Fruit Mart vegetables,” I’m going to call your competition. But if you’re serving up an “Aporkalypse Now” or a “Ba ba baaa ba ba bar lamb,” I’m in.

Of course, being foodie-bait, some of the burgers came in inexplicably overpriced. Some burgers, with no fries and only a couple of exotic things, were going for $25. My Stateside drive-thru go-to, the In’N’Out Double Double Animal Style would pull a solid top half finish in Burger Wellington, but it costs $3.50.

Through my two weeks of gluttonous endurance, I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes a great, classic burger.

A steamed bun tastes luxuriously soft, but it turns very quickly into a soggy bun, which tastes like tramping. All buns, even steamed ones, are better with a bit of crunch, from a walk under the grill or across the griddle.

Meat patties need some burny crunchy bits on the outside, even when they’re beautifully pink in the middle. And unless you’ve really got tartare quality meat, two thin patties are better than one thick one. More patties, more crispy bits.

Bigger isn’t always better.

Even in a world of truffled brie and cave-aged blue, there’s a special place for a strong, thick, melty slice of cheddar.

The veggies that pop are a little different, like fried pickled onions or beetroot relish.

If you’re going to pimp-up your special sauce, be aggressive. Nothing’s as underwhelming as a not-tangy-enough sauce.

Always serve some pickle. On the side, sliced in, it doesn’t matter. Serve it up.

Last, if you’re trying to stand out, dare to be different. The burger’s a pretty forgiving platform if you’re keen to experiment.

Five Boroughs in Mt Victoria is my winner. They didn’t do a classical burger at all. They did Vadereqsue all-black dish, plate and everything. The bun was squid ink. Black garlic mayo. Charred venison. Deeply sautéed mushrooms peeking out the bottom. The only bright ingredient was the truffled brie, which they gave us lots of, but hidden under the lid.

It tasted even better than it looked, with the la-de-da fancy cheese melting through the crunchy top of the venison patty, and garlicky mushrooms soaking up any juices that spilled. The ink bun tasted just salty enough to be different. It worked perfectly.

One of my client’s staffers wasn’t a believer. She thought only proper fancy restaurants could do a proper fancy burger, and Five Boroughs was just a mid-range burger joint trying to play up a league. Then she went there, and saw the light. Several staffers made multiple trips after that.

My second place wasn’t a classical burger either. Ti Kouka café’s Aporkalypse Now, geniusly matched with a beer called Death from Above, was more porktopia than aporkalypse. There was chilli oil on the side, pork crackling floating around because, well,  why not, and an amazing pork shoulder-and-bacon thing in the middle. The only downside was a borderline soggy bun. A hamlicious, pigtacular mess.

It wasn’t only oddballs that floated to the top of my rankings – Egmont St Eatery, The Bresolin, and Bin 44 were all twists on a classic red meat cheeseburger, all done really nicely, and that rounded out my top five.

I’m counting down to the start of next year’s two week burgergasm. 350 sleeps to go.

And now… time for a run.