Posts by George Darroch
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Not really in a position to add much today. Busy, so I’ll just linkwhore the glorious NMA.
-
"The radicals claim a bigger, better demand: "real" democracy. The ability to set policy is worth much more than any particular policy, and democracy is the institutional setup that gives everybody the ability to participate in setting policy."
Via Chris Blattman, a structural analysis of why their lack of claims matters. "How political economy theory can explain OWS".
-
It makes me hopeful that debt is more than just a handy boogeyman for the Government, and that they are willing to expend some political capital to actually govern.
You and I wish for very different things. They’re going to expend that political capital by cutting basic services that have large positive externalities, so that some rich [insert derisory term here] with a view of the water can build a larger swimming pool.
-
This video is going around at the moment. 3 minutes, focused on the crowd.
It's pretty intense. And pretty beautiful. I'm hardly nationalistic, and while I love rugby the hype is a little much sometimes. But when I watch this... I understand.
-
And a rather breathless, but still touching 20/20 segment which focuses on his person and explains a little of the motivation behind such a personality.
-
Hawken is... beyond description.
-
I should probably make clear (in the interests of transparency) that I'm the Green Party campaign coordinator for Mangere, Manukau East, and Manurewa. I've said it elsewhere on the internet, but I don't think I've said it here. My opinions don't represent anyone other than myself, but they certainly aren't neutral.
-
Can't disagree with either of those points. Messy.
-
the somewhat confusing new role proposed for NZ On Screen in the Labour document is not the result of any discussion whatsoever with NZ On Screen itself (or, I think NZ On Air). That’s pretty messy.
I might be naive, so this is a genuine question, but how would an opposition political party have such a conversation with a government body? Given that state servants are paid to keep out of politics and the Beehive does not take kindly to having them develop opposition policy, there seems to be a very narrow space in which they can work. It may be that Curran etc have not used that space, but that doesn’t seem a huge problem. If Labour understand how NZOS and NZOA work, and their functions, then altering those in policy isn’t necessarily an issue.
-
You could be a National cabinet minister with that line :)
Policy and message should align certainly. And policy should be defensible against a range of ideological attacks. But the test of a policy should always be how well it grounds against reality. Anything else is theatrics and game-playing.
I should say that I'm very impressed with the roundness of thinking shown by Labour in their policy proposals.