Hard News: All John's Friends
100 Responses
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Have Labour and National learned nothing from their previous marriages of convenience with that toxic bigot and his merry band of blithering ninny-hammers? Apparently not…
I suspect that in private they both regard Winnie as a necessary evil at best.
When Winnie retires, there’s the possibility of Richard Prosser taking charge and retooling NZF into a full-blown Geert Wilders/Marine Le Pen type of "tea" party. Hoping against hope it doesn’t come to pass.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
True dat, how many are from Epsom is the question.
And, with apologies to a French electoral predicament from a few years back, how many Epsomites would think it "better to vote for a crook than a socialist"?
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Good move. They’d already said they’d do this, and doing it now gets them in on the news cycle.
And I already know of three areas a Cunliffe-led Govt can start cutting back:
- replacing the Puhoi-Wellsford Holiday Highway with Operation Lifesaver, which achieves the same purpose at a fraction of the cost
- scrapping the Health Benefits Ltd quango which is effectively a rehash of the old Shipley-era Health Funding Authority
- defunding the Institute for the Study of Competition Regulation, a cartel’s lobby group that thinks it’s a university research organisationWe've been banged about the head that NZ is borrowing $300m a week, and what happens? It seems you can ask the Govt for as much money as you like, so long as you drive a Rolls and wear D&G.
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Richard Aston, in reply to
I’d be surprised if ACT don’t get Epsom again, though. They could put a bald dancing monkey in there and Epsom would vote for it.
I know a few people in Epsom who feel kinda dirty now. Not so sure they would sully themselves again.
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I wonder if Winston will go for the cross benches rather than a coalition , he seems to love stirring shit in the house ,the noble warrior of ordinary folk, and Key won't be handing him many baubles.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
we wish you a Merry Isthmus…
…from Epsom
Epsodomites?
Epsom Salts?
Epitomes...
or bellwethers? -
This is what I always picture when talk turns to genial John and his 'friends'...
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Lilith __, in reply to
More of note than what JK is saying is the way he's framing it: Green as radical left, Labour as Left, National as centre. That line clearly shows the results of their recent polling and the strategy this year.
That's such BS, though. Labour slid towards the right in the 1980s and remains uneasy about its unionist origins; National has continued to drift rightwards towards wingnut ACT territory. The Greens in general occupy the left where Labour used to be.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
More of note than what JK is saying is the way he’s framing it: Green as radical left, Labour as Left, National as centre. That line clearly shows the results of their recent polling and the strategy this year.
That’s such BS, though. Labour slid towards the right in the 1980s and remains uneasy about its unionist origins; National has continued to drift rightwards towards wingnut ACT territory. The Greens in general occupy the left where Labour used to be.
It's worse. This is a politician trying to frame the world as binary. Left OR Right.
Yet the problems we face are multifaceted. And we need politicians who can respond to all the facets in more than a simple-minded left or right mode.
One of the really nice things about The Greens over the last couple of years is they have stopped framing issues as Green or not-Green. Instead they have developed policy for each issue taking into account all the relevant factors. In some issues the most important factor is environmental in another issue it might be business or bureaucratic or scientific or social or ...
And ALL those factors need to be considered and debated and represented in our parliament.
The simple-minded binary approach shown by John Key in particular is just insulting to every New Zealander whatever their political leanings.
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martinb, in reply to
This comes in part from an environment where some journalists print press releases or accept National’s framing without question.
It’d be interesting to ask those people a follow up question along the lines of what makes the Greens far left.
Another anecdote- I had a conversation with a young voter with conservative parents who felt obliged to vote the Nats, but the other party that interested him was the Greens.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
This comes in part from an environment where some journalists print press releases without question.
FTFY.
The practice of churnalism, aka press-release-as-reportage, is not something confined to uncritical repetition of National's releases. It just so happens, though, that National are the ones implementing policy so it's their releases that are mostly worth being regurgitated; often without even being subjected to such journalistic basics as editing for spelling and grammar. -
martinb, in reply to
BUT!
They are business people. All of Epsom and no other electorate in the country!They are hallowed. They have amazing decision making abilities. They could even vote for Winston if necessary! These are not your weak-willed, morally hog-tied professionals, your doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, policemen, firemen and other lily livered public servants!
"Business people are more accustomed to putting sentiment aside for important decisions."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11188236
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martinb, in reply to
I guess that's what I meant.
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On RNZ Nat's 10 o'clock news last night Colin Craig said he'd have "six MPs, maybe double digits".
That's the sort of thing you'd say if you thought man never landed on the moon. Er, hang on... -
Myles Thomas, in reply to
That's a good point about keeping Winston closer. But I wonder if Labour should declare they will NOT form a coalition with NZFirst. It would certainly destroy NZFirst as any kind of soft vote for change and compel voters to vote Labour/green or national. It'd make Cunliffe look staunch and tough too.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
That’s such BS, though. Labour slid towards the right in the 1980s and remains uneasy about its unionist origins; National has continued to drift rightwards towards wingnut ACT territory. The Greens in general occupy the left where Labour used to be.
The pattern is just the same in much of the Anglosphere. Tony Abbott, David Cameron, Stephen Harper, whoever gets the GOP nomination in 2016… the orthodoxy will have to collapse under its own weight eventually.
NZ does stand out, though, for having proportional representation. Australia, to a lesser extent for preferential voting.
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Well kudos to you all. Flame war did not commence like I thought. You're all very mature.
I have to disagree with a few commenters who think National have "drifted" to the right. Key is fairly centrist. English is small c Conservative. We still have a welfare state. We still have a fairly progressive tax system. This myth that we're a crazy right wing country is just that, a myth.
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martinb, in reply to
Disagree dude. They are far right (Key more than English perhaps) who take what they can get by stealth. If they thought they could get away with abolishing the welfare system they would.
They have been tacking to the right in lots of little small chunks, removing rights here and there in little pieces. For example the next thing they are aiming at is tea breaks and meal breaks and your right to have them. Death by 1000 cuts.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
We still have a welfare state. We still have a fairly progressive tax system.
So far. It would seem fairly clear that the government is keen to dismantle as much of that as they can get away with. NZ isn't crazy right wing, but the political centre has definitely been pulled right-wards.
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Got to give English credit for not slashing welfare in 2009 when they had every opportunity. Still pretty stupid since.
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Sacha, in reply to
Well kudos to you all. Flame war did not commence
Yes. Respec.
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Rich Lock, in reply to
Flame war did not commence like I thought. You’re all very mature.
The correct incantation is: 'on my command, unleash hell', not 'flame war: commence.'
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unleash teh hounds
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
The correct incantation...
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Hebe, in reply to
Sometimes we behave better than we want to.
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