Posts by Nick Russell
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Polity: Let the big lies flow, in reply to Rob Salmond,
The likes of David Farrar and Jordan Williams know how to get the media's attention. Labour should have had their own narrative on cost and tax rates ready to go when they announced this, so they could pre-empt the inevitable attack, but it seems they didn't and so the Government got free hits. Don't blame the media for that. They don't have the resources to do independent analysis a lot of the time, so they will regurgitate anything that sounds plausible. You can use that to your advantage, you know.
-
Re the UBI - I'm sorry, but exactly what did you expect? It's not National's job to help Labour develop good policy, or to provide constructive feedback. They want to ensure Labour stays in opposition, and they stay in Government. So they try to find and exploit flaws in your policies. That is not dirty politics. That is a democracy at work.
None of what has happened here should come as even mildly surprising. Doing hit jobs on Labour policies is basically what Kiwiblog and the Taxpayers Union do - and they have every right to do that. It might be a good idea to anticipate the attacks and pre-empt them when releasing a policy, or even announcing that you are thinking about it, rather than giving the other side free hits.
-
Legal Beagle: The Teapot Moan Scandal…, in reply to andin,
I suspect this is a reference to the defence of honest opinion, and intended to tell us that the PM intended to rely on that defence if the matter went to trial. Of course, whether that defence could or would have succeeded, we'll never know now.
It's far from a foregone conclusion that Ambrose would have won if the proceeding went to trial. But for the PM, the prospect of being subjected to cross-examination in front of the media and a jury possibly during an election year would have been very unattractive.
-
Polity: Poll Soup, in reply to James Littlewood*,
I just love speculation about the voting intentions of a group of people whose only shared characteristic is not voting. Pitching your policies to people who don't vote is like marketing hamburgers to vegans.
The post-mortem of the UK election by the polling companies confronted the question of why their polls had failed to pick up the fact that the Conservatives had a significant lead that translated into an outright majority. Most pollsters were still picking a hung Parliament. Among other factors, the review found that pollsters did not give enough weighting to the views of voters aged over 70 and those who were difficult to reach - did not answer the phone during office hours and took 3 or more attempts to contact before responding. Both of these groups, it transpired, were more likely to vote than the average, and more likely to vote Conservative. By contrast, the views of younger people were over-represented because they are less likely to vote at all.
Bottom line - nobody owns the missing million. And their support is worthless anyway because they don't vote. Better to spend your time and resources developing policies that are likely to appeal to people who do vote.
-
Which begs the question, how does the left do this? Recently we have seen 2 strategies in action - free tertiary education and (somewhat muddled) opposition to TPP. They haven't been game-changers so far, and one possible inference one could draw is that Labour might have done better in terms of winning over current National supporters if it had come out in support of the TPP, even if reluctantly. The current position seems to be an exercise of singing to the choir which excites the base without attracting any new support.
-
The Minister is basically trying to create a process and precedent for prescribing and dispensing cannabis in a regulatory vacuum. He can't change the law/regs because the Government isn't interested, so he is working with the tools he has. This requires a significant investment of time, effort and political capital, so it is going to be slow and messy and even if it does work, the major beneficiaries are likely to be cancer sufferers who come after Helen Kelly. It's a bit like Dr Johnson's (notoriously sexist) quip about a dog walking on its hind legs - it is not done well but one is surprised to see it done at all.
-
Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to James Littlewood*,
No, that's what I meant at all.
I cut my teeth going to gigs in England in the early 80s. These were emphatically not safe spaces. The risk of violence breaking out was kind of part of the thrill, but then I was young, white, male and 6 foot 2. God knows what it would have been like if I wasn't. You had Crass preaching equality and tolerance, but that was about it really, at least for the gigs I went to.
Happy to say that in my limited and privileged experience, going to gigs now is far more civilised. But still, dickheads will be dickheads.
-
There's an elephant in the room that isn't being discussed here. My experience of 30 plus years of attending gigs is that audiences can be very tribal. If you are the wrong age, gender, colour or just dress wrong you will be a target for someone, and alcohol makes it worse. Not all gigs are like that, but there is always a risk. Gigs can be events with a friendly harmonious vibe. But I have been to a lot that weren't.
-
I'm not sure the Aucklanders here understand how toothgrindingly frustrating it is for the rest of the country to hear endlessly about Auckland's roads, Auckland's housing and Auckland's public transport. It's a focus for the Government because of the battleground seats there, not to mention the mayoralty and for the media because they mostly live there. But for those of us outside the bubble, not so much. And to keep getting told that what is good for Auckland benefits everyone else is really, really irritating. Because the effects on the rest of us can be very hard to see, even with a degree of goodwill.
I suspect the consequences will be more reactions of the sort we saw in the Northland by-election last year. If there is a perception in New Plymouth, or Whanganui, or Invercargill, that the regions have been ignored or taken for granted then sooner or later it will start to hurt the Government. NZ First gets this and has been working away on it. Labour and the Greens seem to be happily inside the 09 bubble with National.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Gobshite vs Adele, in reply to Russell Brown,
The Chemical Brothers already did that but they called it Let Forever Be instead. Probably for copyright reasons.