Posts by simon g
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It may be conventional now, but it's not always been the case. Clark and Bolger lost and stayed - and won the next one. Moore stayed and almost won 3 years later. Even Brash, English and Shipley waited before they were ousted, well after the election.
Unless Ardern has a disastrous campaign, she would surely be smarter to wait for Winston to do for the Nats what he has done to two previous gov'ts. Quitting on election night has been part of Labour's problem: it's a habit they should break.
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Hard News: That escalated quickly ..., in reply to Ian Dalziel,
After Key, Little and English, it's good to have a search-friendly name at last.
Anyway ... I wish her all the best. I shifted some time ago from Labour to the Greens in my voting intention (not specifically due to Little, more an accumulation of facepalms since 2008) but in any event I hope to see her as the next PM. And if she misses out this time, for goodness sake leave her in place for the next one.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to st ephen,
"It's now been revealed ... " says Stuff.
Shame on Turei, keeping her election candidacy secret. From everyone except ... well, everyone.
Investigative journalism at its finest. Next Stuff scoop: Andrew Little confesses to union activism. Why weren't we told?
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That SpinOff link features Porky Pig, campaigning for the Taxpayers' Union.
Does the Jordan Williams outfit have permission to use a character whose copyright is owned by Warner Bros?
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The fringes may be immune to reason, but there's a more serious problem when their rantings are given air time in mainstream media. For example, I'm one of those insomniacs awake at 5 a.m., and I'll flick on the radio. At that hour, the two commercial "news" outlets (ZB and Live) are happy - even desperate - to get feedback, and seem to have little interest in editing before broadcasting. So when Bruce from Browns Bay* sends in his Putin-loving fact-free text, it gets read out, with a frankly pathetic "thank you" from the host. Why? Because they can. Not because they care. And that is on them. If they don't know the difference between censorship and basic professional standards, they really are a big part of the problem.
* may not actually be from Browns Bay, alliteration is fake news -
The question I'd like to hear from Little (or Shaw, Turei, whoever):
"Is Todd Barclay fit to be an MP or not?"
Forget all the parentheses and mini-speeches, just ask directly. Carter will rule it out of order, so just get up and ask exactly the same question again. Worst case scenario: chucked out of house. Headline guaranteed, a bad one for National ("Speaker protects PM").
I doubt this will happen, and the questions will be waffly and pre-scripted, but here's hoping.
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I watched Barclay's statement (not in fact a press conference, no questions taken) live on Checkpoint just now. The money shot was the reaction of the reporters (Soper, Audrey Young etc), roughly translated as "You gotta be kidding me!".
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Todd Barclay about to make statement to media.
Pawn lost, king protected?
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Partly my own fault, of course, but when I heard the story today I thought: "Newsroom? What's that?".
Much more importantly, I suspect National's inner circle think much the same. Yes, it's a relief to know there are still journalists out there who chase up these stories, but in a media environment of The Project and multiple Hosking shows, you can see why Bill, Todd et al might think "Relax, it's just one quick news cycle, the rugby and boats will save us by the weekend." I really hope that's not the case, but it feels like a very long time since Sean Plunkett grilled Benson-Pope into retirement. Obfuscating and hiding works well enough to cling on these days.
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Where is the factual error in that sentence? "Automatically" is correct.
The other scenarios after a vote of no confidence (a new government being formed) may be politically difficult, even implausible, but they are there.