The frustration was palpable today as Guyon Espiner struggled in vain to get a single straight answer from Bill English, who was only prepared to twist, evade, and repeat lines: “GUYON Do you accept that for very high income earners, people on the sort of salary like your own of $276,000 a year,you gave those people money they simply did not need?
Bill English is trying to assuage National Party member who are concerned that the Party is betraying its principles (ha!) and giving too much to the Maori Party saying “all those decisions are being made in the context of the longer-term view, reaching our objectives over the next four or five years” – winning a second term trumps principle. It’s about power for its own sake.
The Nats are looking to cut $1.8 billion in spending over four years. Where from? What and who will be deemed to be “low quality” in need of “weeding out”? The answers are going to tell us a lot about the National Party’s values…
Bill English continues to tell outright lies about the economic performance of this country under Labour. This time it’s even more blatant. You don’t have to do any maths to check if he’s lying or not, you just have to go to the latest GDP stats. This has reached the point of purposely misleading the House and the public.
Well, I’m pleasantly surprised. For once, Paula Bennett has played it straight on the benefit numbers. She hasn’t slapped herself on the back, even though last month’s benefit numbers are the best we’ve seen on her watch (in line with normal seasonal variation). If only Bill English could follow suit, rather than claiming credit for illusionary movements in the government’s books.
As you’ll be aware, I’ve been pretty flabbergasted by the way day after day Bill English is getting up in the House and telling out and out lies about Labour’s record on the economy only for Labour to sit there and take it. Well, I’ve been thinking about this a little more and I think I get it now. He can’t talk up his own performance – there’s nothing to skite about and it’s against his political strategy even if there were some successes to point to
Bill English can’t defend his economic record, 2.2% fall in GDP, still rising unemployment, falling wages, GDP per capita still falling and not expected to return to pre-recession levels until 2012, so he’s telling more lies about Labour’s record instead. Meanwhile, the Do Nothing Prime Minister is still daydreaming about his cycleway, which he now says will create “a lot more” than 4,000 jobs.
Michael is dead right. The most important thing about the Hollow Men is not how Nicky Hager got the information but what the information is. It reveals National’s modern politics in all its unprincipled ugliness. Nonetheless, which Nats gave Hager the information is a subject of legitimate interest. I have some theories.
John Key has promised to make tax changes that are revenue neutral, give huge payouts to the wealthy elite, and somehow mean the “vast bulk of taxpayers will be substantially better off”. But it’s a money-go-round. How you can make everyone better off with the same amount of money you’ve taken off them?
You have to double-check every ‘fact’ the Nats tell you. Bill English, for example, has been caught out lying on Labour’s growth record.
For the last couple of weeks, John Key has been claiming that when Labour increased GST from 10% to 12.5% in 1989 there was no compensation for taxpayers. That too is a lie.
Bill English’s argument that cutting taxes for the few at the top can cause an economic step change has always been nonsense.
His appearance on Q&A yesterday simply confirmed it.
The Dompost has repeated English’s false claims on GDP growth. They trusted the Minister of Finance to get his maths right. But English’s numbers are completely wrong. He can’t do simple maths, no wonder there’s no government leadership on the economy.
Bill English claimed in the House today that the economy only grew by 0.9% a year in Labour’s last three years in power. Unfortunately for him the problem was his maths, not Labour’s economic policy. English can’t get simple percentages right, can we trust him with the nation’s finances?
In chronological order: John Key: “[I never promised I wouldn’t raise GST]. I said I would not raise GST to cover deficits, and […]
Bill English has usurped his do-nothing leader with an op-ed in the Herald framing National’s agenda for the year to come. This piece was […]
An extraordinary moment in Question Time as John Boscawen skewered National’s hollow promise to close the wage gap with Australia by 2025. Watch […]
I’m kind of embarrassed. I should know by now never to trust a word out of Bill English’s mouth. I should have checked […]
Recall that last week Speaker Lockwood Smith tried to heavy the press, demanding that they stop doing stories on MP’s expenses or he […]
It looked like a duck. It walked like a duck. It quacked like a duck. Turns out it was a duck. The “Plain […]
There were only really two ministers in the race for the first Grabby. Rodney Hide betrayed his own supposed principles by using his […]
Yesterday, John Key cleverly tried to reframe his ministers’ failure to obey his standards on use of perks: “You don’t want 120 Members […]
Bill English claims (echoes of another Bill!) that he did not have pecuniary relations with his family trust: “I didn’t have a pecuniary […]
Check out the invite we got to ‘Plain English’. Incredible. I didn’t even know until watching the Campbell Live story that David Cunliffe and Roger […]
Now TVNZ is pulling the Bill English ad, I notice the web ad is also gone. In it’s place is something so vapid that I pray it […]
If you thought TVNZ’s promo ad for its Plain English series looked like an ad for the National Party you’re not alone. Seems […]
I hadn’t seen the Bill English ad until now. I guess I had kind of assumed it couldn’t be that bad – surely […]
Bill English stands condemned. Only in part by the Auditor General. Her report is ambiguous: The result was that the Crown was renting […]
Bill English knows a thing or two about screwing every possible cent out of the system. He gets his generous $276,000 salary. For […]
Some of you will get the Trans-Tasman emailed to your work each Thursday. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a little rag […]
I love that, after studiously ignoring Bill English’s housing rort, Farrar’s now got unending questions for the Greens. Pretty desperate stuff too – ‘sure, […]
Greetings to the good people of Dipton. Must be fun to be so much in the news lately! I hope some local entrepreneurs […]
Colin Espiner: “To start with the ironical, Acting Prime Minister Bill English had no sooner hauled his protesting family back to Dipton for […]
Fran O’Sullivan has laid out the business elite’s preferred successors to Bill English: At this stage English is not mortally wounded. But his […]
That last post was probably a bit dull for a Friday morning, so now for something completely different. I was a little surprised […]
Bill English keeps claiming that he has “no pecuniary interest” in his family trust. What does that mean? A while back John A […]
