Yeah, actually, reconsidering, I think you’re absolutely correct. Whatever Key’s got appears to be contagious when all we need is someone who has been vaccinated.

;- )

A joy to read, NSA, but the above line really, really made…

Well I don't know if I'd go that far, but y'know =). Modal verb usage enjoys a degree of deviation. In my work I'm often torn between my descriptivist upbringing and the pressure to ignore issues with/relay/affirm unkempt neologisms from around the world. If…

Beware what you wish for. Those righteous grammar police with 6th form English under their belts do indeed tend to the prescriptive. But, English speakers, lacking a recognized language authority to officially prescribe usage for them (unlike the French), should recognize that what they call…

Well I've never party voted Labour, and I can't see myself doing so in the…

Equally unjust is to stab the Party in the back and delegate the Party to incompetence (due to it’s internal process) before the guy had a…

Oh, please. See above for remarks on the Labour Party constitution and its links to unions. If you don't like how the Labour Party does it, then vote elsewhere or…

"s/he’s a PM I could have a beer with"

What are the circumstances?

Does ‘could’ here denote my preference to do this or simply the likelihood of such an event occurring? Is ‘a beer’ a shared cup? Our own vessels? A keg?…

I suspect the PR problem has arisen because Stu seems to have little sense of proportion.

Goodness me…a fire engine as his promotional vehicle…what was he thinking???

(That…and him disingenuously letting…

What absolute bull faeces DexterX.

Always with the lil' guy . :)

Him and Toot.

Nah just good you can see that there is a bigger picture than just personality involved

Heh.
They won't let me put out fires, isn't that a shame
Someday I'll be big and strong and fight every flame...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K9XVTBQWVQ

I assume you mean Parker in finance. If those all bagging Little actually took…

Might be a bit of a PR issue with Nash....http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/63403143/MP-in-the-firing-line-as-parkers-see-red

He would be well advised to flick the engine....maybe when he's big enough???

Nice one.

There's no problems with them representing their members – that's what I expect my union to do.

Why some of them get to be the deciding vote in choosing a future Prime…

I think you can get an idea of what Little is thinking if you look towards the differences between the 2011 and 2014 election…

Well, the unions aren't saying CGT should be scrapped, are they? That's Little making a strategic choice for Labour

Yeah, well obviously it's a logical culmination of all the work of the union movement that I pay 33% tax on money I earn by working, and a big fat 0% on money I make just by owning a house.

I must be missing…

... and thus Novus Labour was reborn!
the first past the post-partum post party
delivered a Little renascence man
plucked from a basket case in reeds
raised afresh at the breast of an
engaged & caring community,
a Labour of love...

...we have the…

but i don;t see why it should be anything more than one vote per union member for labour leadership. So then there is no weighting from anyone who is not…

And there are unionists and unionists. For example, it’s possible to be militantly anti-abortion, anti-gay and anti-feminist while remaining a major powerbroker in the Australian union movement.
At the last count the Shoppies were one of Australia’s largest unions with…

Yes, I too think she is (wise, Sofie means wise too )and her age wasn't even a problem ;) The sum of the Party and it's Mps have many strengths. Even the odd pitbull or…

And Shane Jones. She's a complex one.

Audrey Young says Helen Clark also wanted Andrew Little
[Former Prime Minister Helen Clark recognised it in 2007 and tried to persuade Mr Little to stand in 2008,

And everyone accuses her of not thinking of the future of the Party.…

Won't Little being voted as leader actually be that turn-around. Afaics leaders and ex-leaders get a lot more electorate votes than back-bencher MPs. It is likely that he'll pull…

I think she did, but it was Cunliffe ;-)

Ahahahahahahaha! Oh dear, how one's idealogy plays tricks on the facts. Reagan got the call because he was a familiar brand, as a movie star and a state governor, despite the beginnings of Alzheimers even before…

The key thing to remember about unions, and I repeat this from my delegate and branch chair days in…

I bet you’d make the trains run on time to. The idea that rule by a technocratic elite making “quality” decisions based on some sort of detached rational criteria is somehow superior to…

That is true, but it also involves picking battles. I'm in favour of CGT too, but I don't see it as worth dying in a ditch over. It could easily be relegated to…

Little hasn't said a CGT is too strange or challenging for voters. He said that effectively Labour lost the argument and keeping it as a policy would continue…

But then in 2008, a huge swing to the Right in Christchurch, while the swing in Wellington City was, first…

Yes, exactly. I was disappointed when Labour decided that they'd govern alone or not at all. Just to be clear, the third paragraph in my post was supposed to explain that:

( I said)…

[[http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/323116/outrage-air-nz-plans|Former New Zealand politician Sir Michael Cullen, who lives in Ohope, travels to Wellington several times a week in his roles on the board of KiwiBank and as New Zealand Post chairman. He said he will…

And I’d bet that not so long ago you’d have confidently said that about Christchurch. I’ve yet to read an honest post-mortem on what went so horribly wrong there from Labour’s POV…

Be handy around the Barbie. This term needs to be released into the wild.
I intend to call all of my mates a meathead messiah some time in the next week.
Getting the BBQ aprons printed asap.

The emphasis is not on the Left Bloc vote but on Labour's vote. Essentially, the argument that Labour has suffered an appalling, way-above-average Party-Vote decline in Little's New Plymouth (with the associated notion that Little…

The difference being, of course, that the 3000 votes in New Plymouth went to National (which increased its party vote there by 3,457 from 2008-2014), whereas most of…

Little’s firmly matter-of-fact affirmation that sexual harassment is a serious issue is a refreshing change from Cunliffe’s musings about his guilt…

Not quite the sequencing.

Many of those who would have become deadwood having made important contributions to the party (Bolger, McKinnon, Birch, Graham and others whose names I…

While I respect Quin's tactical nous (along with me, he was the only one to accurately predict the 2010 Mana…

Because if there's one…

Look, I'm queer, I'm Gen-X, I live as close to the central city as I can. According to people…

Presuming they knew the answer when they didn't.

Of course, there has to be a first one, but it would be a…

For me, the next three years are about getting 51% of New Zealanders to vote for a Labour/Greens coalition in 2017. This is going to require Labour (in particular) to re-connect with significant numbers of swing voters.

I'm prepared to overlook…

Is it ? And yet that is precisely the anecdotal evidence that's come through from Labour Party activists in the immediate post-Election period. You'll find scattered comments to…

Well…

Not at all. Just that I don't believe the unions are enough to win the next election and another 6 years of National control will end the unions.

And yes I'm a member.

But what if a sizeable number of the caucus don't know when to quit, crowding out the likes of Michael Wood? After the Nats slumped to the low 20s in 2002, the recovery process started with Michelle…

Island Bay ceased to exist as an Electorate quite some time ago. You'll…

A union is just a bunch of people with the same self-interest...not a bunch of commies hanging out under our beds.

A well organised…

As doesn't happen in the many European democracies, the UK, the USA, Canada, etc. Only Australia clings to this antiquated idea.

OK, it's a matter of opinion that party members should be less involved in choosing their leaders, but it's matter…

He has to addressthe Auckland property weirdness quickly before Auckland Central turns into a literal capital grab fueled on the existence of a wealthy elite. He needs to address the awkwardness of our economy, given that the only tool National has…

Why? Because it's more democratic? Or because the evil union guy wouldn't have won?

Little lives in Island Bay.

Nothing at all. But their inordinate effect on the leadership vote is. As I said earlier, the vote should've just been made by the caucus.

New Plymouth...sorry New Plymouth...doesn't REALLY matter does it?…

He'll be parachuted…

From each accordant to their ability , to each according to their need. (Communist manifesto)

Fairness for all. Wouldn't it be nice..da da da da da (Beach Boys)

In the…

The issue of sharing the gdp fairly amongst the citizens is Labours core message now to election day .Most of us, who haul our tired bodies out of bed each morning to work for the strength of the economy are sick of receiving less and less each…

Thank you, my thoughts exactly. Hooton ,all shootin’ again and he’d be the biggest kiss arse for Key if ever I saw one and all for what? Is it because the guy is a good…

Tolley isn't looking at super, MSD suggested it in…

You mean just as Labour did when Helen Clark was the leader of a minority government, with confidence and supply arrangements with New…

He’s clearly got a brain on him, and a lot of experience, and seems like a very good fast talker. I feel pretty stoked really. If he goes through with 70% of what he’s talking about there, I might even switch back to voting Labour, and if you’d…

One can only hope that this version of Labour is willing to accept that MMP is a thing and contemplate governing with the assistance of other parties. Which means that there are…

Key wasn't given a chance, he was given a back rub and smothered in kisses.

Some of us remember 2006-8, even if you choose not to. The most sycophantic coverage of an opposition leader I have…

The tipline is running hot then?

No one is going to "give the guy a chance". This is about who will be prime minister of New Zealand, not a giving a troubled teen a go at a job making fries at McDonalds.

No one…

There's no lack of precedents. Michael Bassett, for example, got himself a speechwriting gig for Don Brash :)

BTW Little…

Sure. I know the theory. But I've been in a union long enough to know the reality, too.

UK Labour started a 1/3:1/3:1/3 caucus:members:affiliates voting at the start of the 80s.
Tony Blair and a number before him were elected under that system.
Until Milliband (Ed) beat Milliband (David) in 2010 all 3 parts of the electoral college voted the same way.
There…

Oh you beat me to it and I haven’t even listened to anyone yet :)

The *elected* executive of the union consult with members and then make a recommendation.

Then the elected delegates of the Union Conference consult with their members locally and cast their votes taking all that into consideration.

It may not be one member, one vote -…

Here's my experience – for what its worth: I worked with him when I was a journalist…

Can anyone put that up. Sacha, thanks for this mornings. I have a packed up house and wouls appreciate listening.

After six long years, we finally have a decent opposition leader.

I then tweeted a fair bit of stuff about trade unions and conspiracy theories, in particular about Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic beliefs about unions being a ’Jewish conspiracy’.

Gower immediately favourited and retweeted all of them. If…

Yes, to my mind, its most redeeming quality! Additionally as Gareth commented when speaking on it to the NZ Society of Accountants – they too would (largely) be out of a job – were his proposal of…

There's mould in them there pills....

What's "UBI" please ?

BAM! PROVE THAT ONE…

Yes, nice to hear him mention Gareth Morgan and the Big Kahuna – it shows he doesn't just discount radical ideas in favour of the safer status quo.

I don't think there is an Anyone But Little party, though. It would seem that Cunliffe had…

It's not that they're talking, it's the way they're talking...

And Tolley is looking at superannuation. Will be interesting if she wants to raise the age. Let her get kudos for that I say . MSD needs to save a bundle
Just hope she doesn't do a buster Bennet on beneficiaries.

Labour will often face the problem under its current system of having leaders appointed who don't…

Little was branded as an outsider in New Plymouth six years ago, and has been fighting that ever since. Over the past three years I've…

Heard a bit of Robertson I think it was on RNZ this morning, promising to help stop that habit if it continues.

"How are you going to beat John Key in 2017?"

"What we won't be doing is what he has done now for so long, which is give the appearance of a happy-go-lucky chappy but run the vilest, nastiest smear machine we have…

Framing politics as macho dick-measuring "biffo" goes a long way to explaining why more and more people are disengaged and cynical from a process they see as entirely divorced from their needs and values. That doesn't mean I expect, or even want, politics to be…

Less than 24 hours after the result of our leadership election has been announced? I think…

Wow, Northshoreguynz, perhaps you can see a problem with demanding unquestioning fealty from people you're quite happy to…

The more I hear him the more I like him, already.

Ditto Andrew, sort of. Grant is a genuinely remarkable individual who I'd also have liked to be leader. However, Andrew certainly has many similar qualities that…

Really ? That sort of shoddy personal insult, as opposed to commenting on the actual facts, says a lot more about you than it does me.

I find you all being in agreement with Bomber the scariest part.

... a glitch in the Matrix!

... a glitch in the Matrix?

Not saying these are bad ideas, but I…

This makes me deeply uncomfortable and causes me to wonder where I've gone wrong :->

We appear to be in some sort of weird dimension where you, I and David Farrar are all saying the same thing. Mark this moment as one for the…

I fretted long and hard about my leadership vote. Eventually settling on…

And the same Don Brash who wilfully had the rug pulled from under him by Rob Muldoon in said electorate, because Muldoon wasn't a big fan of Brash's Hayekian/von Misesian world-view.

Same.

Not sure it matters. Brash beat English by one vote in caucus (after John Key switched sides), and…

Yes. Because I think Grant is a better person to lead Labour than Andrew Little. So…

;- )

Saying that if his party peers allow, Little could be the one to at the least construct a solid united and loyal team. If so that…

Oh. Now I see. If Little squeaks in it is bad. If one more caucus vote had had…

there are unknown factors at play
new actors in collusion

new solids in solution
no more news idols

...and sometimes just
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming#Accidental_discovery|leaving it on the…

It's bitcoin or nothing!!

http://pundit.co.nz/content/worst-result-ever

As I happily acknowledge upfront, much of it is personal disappointment that a close friend didn't get the job I think he's made for. But beyond that, if Little was…

How does 225 South African Krugerrands (in unmarked notes) sound ? Thought as much. So can I take it there'll be no more anti-Little diatribes for the foreseeable future ?

You're right. Sorry. I now see that 2 + 2 = 5, for the good of the Party.

Huh?

You do realise that the affiliate vote is effectively determined by the executives of most unions, not the actual members who cast ballots at election time. So, yes…