Posts by Tom Semmens
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I hadn’t realised that “pandering to bigots” had become a core Labour value.
Oh fuck off. Am I to believe you think blue collar provincial males are all bigots who are beneath your cultured urban contempt? that is so dripping with arrogance. I am completely over having wallys wailing “BIGOT” when you point out the bleeding obvious – that the Labour party no longer appears to appeal to those who actually do the labouring.
Winning those people back does not mean you have you go around being a bigot. It just means you need to start talking about what is relevant to those who labour. Housing. Wages. the cost of living. Those sorts of issues. Labour has lost those who labour. Pointing out that making a gay machine politician from Wellington central leader will do nothing to win them back is not being a bigot.
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Smart, organised, ambitious, articulate, conversant with Labour principles.
And completely invisible. She hasn't landed a blow. To be fair, she isn't alone on that score. But she needs to be a bit less organised and ambitious and a bit more filthy mongrel in taking on Bennett before I would consider her for promotion to anything.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
When is Labour going to get over treating ethnic and social groups as voting blocs?
Seen an electoral map of New Zealand lately? It looks like a bloc to me – a solidly blue one. Labour doesn’t exist outside the main centres. Amongst blue collar males, Labour’s vote has collapsed to mickey mouse minor party levels. For a party that calls itself Labour, that is simply not viable in the long term.
A party leader has to articulate in their person the vision of the party. the leader is the party to most voters. He or she has to be the symbol of what that organisation stands for. The leader needs to be the shorthand for the narrative that party wants voters to see the party through.
Whether we like it or not, Labour needs to convince large sections of blue collar New Zealand that it is still the Labour party, and not the assorted social minorities with an axe to grind party.
At this juncture, Labour needs to get back to it’s knitting. Being brand “Labour” that means whatever you want it to mean might work for Josie Pagani, but I think Labour implies a set of core values that it needs to rediscover. Labour doesn’t have the luxury of picking a new leader that doesn’t appeal to what should be it’s core constituency.
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Mind you, now is a good time for a membership drive.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Labour took a chance on a raw player with Shearer. I reckon the party will be looking for a safer pair of hands this time.
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If the new voting rules deliver someone the old guard faction doesn't like I've been rolling around in my head how far fetched it might be to imagine a scenario where the revanchist Rogernomes pack a hissy fit and split away from the party. After all, most of them are in safe electorates and they may fancy their chances as cross bench Peter Dunnes under MMP.
And who next? Bryce Edwards thinks Cunliffe / Robertson is “pre-determined.” Sounds reasonable?
It unites the two biggest factions. With all those PI voters who Labour need to get to the polls in 2014 needing some convincing, Labour electing a gay Wellington based machine politician as leader would be a disaster. Robertson needs to understand being deputy PM in 2014 beats being leader of the opposition forever.
Don't discount Andrew Little as deputy though if the party decides to go to war with the Rogernomes.
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David Shearer has resigned as Labour Party leader apparently!!
My guess is his not-so-secret meeting with Key, which Key used as a stick to beat him with in the debate last night, was the final straw for elements of the caucus that clearly were not informed the meeting took place.
Given the new Labour party voting rules, I predict a Cunliffe/Little ticket winning. I am hoping a new leader, combined with the GCSB fiasco, could prove to be the Orewa moment for this National government.
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All this talk of media management.
National's media approach is simplicity in itself. They do what is all-pervasive in Kiwi life and they do it with such ease because it is what comes naturally to aggressive and arrogant males like Key, Joyce, Brownlee, and English. They are bullies, and the media largely cowers before them.
Those in the media that that are sympathetic get to be part of the bullies gang. Mike Hoskings, for example. Those in the media who are cowed with the velvet glove, are bullied with the velvet glove. Paddy Gower, for example. Those in the media who stand up to the bullying, ignore. All of National radio, for example. Those that can't be ignored, use the bullies iron fist to dissemble, smear and threaten. Jon Stephenson for example.
Bennett is a bully, who can be relied on to help out the other bullies by kicking the poor. National's online cheerleaders Slater and Farrar are bullies. When Brian Edwards raises the mildest complaint on Jim Mora's panel, Michelle Boag ensures she bullies an old man (her "friend", apparently) into silence. Judith Collins is a bully.
To stand up to this National government is to stand up to an administration that has raised bullying to it's central political idea and it's central political management tool.
And let's face it, how many of us had the balls to stand up to the bullies at school?
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I don’t know, reading online comments it seems confirmation bias is main winner of this interview in punterland. Most people made up their minds about the GCSB legislation weeks ago.
There was a thunderous chorus of “case closed” from his supporters on Twitter
Those supporters on Twitter meaning mainly his sycophantic fan club in the media, who can heave a sigh of relief about getting back business as usual?
that was a masterclass in handling what could have been a defining episode in Key’s career.
I would say John Campbell was far to complacent going into this interview. It might be a defining episode if it means Campbell is the last in a long line of people who have assumed Key’s Philistinism means he is stupid. Key might be an ignorant corporate wide boy, but ignorant corporate wide boys are often also as smart, cunning and ruthless as a shit house rat.
We need much, much ruder interviewers in this country. Aussie TV would never have let Key get this far.
We don’t need ruder interviewers. We need a news and current affairs media with the depth and breadth of practice to know how to do a long form interview. Key has got a dedicated propaganda department whose sole job is to prep him for important political moments, we don’t have proper specialised serious news and current affairs journalists and last night that disparity showed. Key up against someone well practiced like Eddie Mair would be a more telling interview.
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I haven’t seen anything to say the GCSB will be able to help NZDF with internal security. I would’ve thought they’d be supplying NZDF with intel about external threats.
Every single instance where we’ve glimpsed the operations of our spies, they’ve been spying on us. And under existing law the GCSB can supply information about foreign threats legally. What sort of threat from New Zealanders would cause the military – a organisation so rich in talent that an idiot like Lieutenant General Richard Rhys Jones was appointed to the top job – concern? Maybe a subversive journo? Or maybe someone in the SAS wants to know if that chick he spoke to in the pub has a boyfriend? We’d never know, cos it’ll all be unaccountable and secret.
the army exists to defend us from foreign threats. Internal security is a matter for the police and the SIS. Allowing the army to spy on any internal “threat” it sees fit is very, very troubling. If we become the primary enemy of our own army then we might as well see if we can borrow the Esmeralda off the Chileans as an interrogation centre.