Written By: - Date published: 11:30 pm, September 22nd, 2008 - 27 comments
National has released their statement about John Key’s shady dealings in Tranzrail shares and unsurprisingly it’s another attempt at misdirection. As I’ve said in the past, this is a tried and true Crosby Textor technique designed to take the heat out of a negative story by directing attention elsewhere until the story dies down. It […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:51 pm, September 22nd, 2008 - 189 comments
One News has just run the revelation that John Key lied to the public and to Parliament about the extent of his shareholding in Tranzrail while using his position to ask questions about the Government’s intentions for rail. More importantly, it seems he met with Rail America in his capacity as National’s transport spokesperson to […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, September 18th, 2008 - 24 comments
Thanks to the wonders of Scoopit I’ve just come across this old TVNZ footage of John Key’s first day as National’s finance spokesman. It’s interesting to see where his economic priorities lay: The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? [It’s worth noting that this isn’t some aberration limited to John Key […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, September 18th, 2008 - 158 comments
Helen Clark made foreign policy judgement a campaign issue today when she told a Grey Power meeting that if New Zealand had invaded Iraq with the US as John Key wanted we would have lost up to 60 soldiers*. Through a spokesman, John Key said “the claim of 60 dead is hysterical and desperate”. I […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, September 17th, 2008 - 70 comments
Yesterday, John Key “attacked Labour’s economic record, which he said amounted to overtaxing voters so it could put money into its pet projects” So, what are these ‘pet projects’ and which of them National would cancel? Well, Labour’s major spending projects have been increasing the health budget, spending more on transport (including roads, unfortunately), more […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, September 16th, 2008 - 64 comments
When John Key responded to the PM’s announcement of the election date on Friday he stated: This election is not about the past. It’s not about the old political battles of the past 20 or 30 years. And I got to thinking, what exactly are these “old political battles of the past 20 or 30 […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, September 15th, 2008 - 78 comments
Well it turns out my niece has been having fun and done an effective google bomb on John Key. I’ve just been watching her TV3 clip when I wrote this post. Rochelle shows her experience with the media in expressing her opinion. This is something that belongs in the Tips on campaigning. I’ve had something […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 15th, 2008 - 79 comments
I just have to say, it’s incredibly disappointing that a simple prank, a google bomb, gets three newspaper articles and coverage on TV3 and when talkback radio suggests The Standard was tipped off on the election date that is an issue worth following up with the PM. But when John Key is quoted in a […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:53 pm, September 12th, 2008 - 56 comments
It’s not John Key’s week really. Winston disappears like magic off the front pages (I honestly thought I had time travelled somehow when I woke up as usual this morning to Moaning Report and there wasn’t a single item on Winston & Glenn), Labour keeps releasing leaked National policies, Bollard slashes interest rates the day […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, September 12th, 2008 - 14 comments
On Sunday, John Key, apparently off-the-cuff, announced he would dismantle the Families Commission and give the money to church groups, who just happened to be the people he was speaking to at the time. Then, he had to speak to UnitedFuture Leader Peter Dunne. The Families Commission is his baby and Key will probably need […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:02 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 27 comments
An interesting interview between John Key and Wammo today. He starts out saying Labour is spending all its time talking about Owen Glenn and Peters whereas he wants to concerntrate on what matters. Funny, because he then spends the rest of the interview turning the topic back to that issue whenever possible and the only […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 68 comments
Can’t put it any better than Jafapete has: Seems that John Key has done it again. Announced policy off-the-cuff and back tracked later. TV3 reports that, speaking to an Auckland families forum yesterday, Key ‘veered away from a written speech appearing to announce in off the cuff remarks that National would axe the commission.’ ‘He […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 44 comments
This is really getting pretty serious now – a fourth National party policy has been leaked to Labour, who have made it public. In the last week we’ve seen National’s environment, conservation, biofuels, and, now, research, science, and technology policies leaked from within National. This is unprecedented – so many policies being leaked this close […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, September 9th, 2008 - 45 comments
John Key is running a line that first emerged in the rightwing blogs a few months ago: ‘Labour doesn’t have any policy, either’. It was a moron’s line when it was on the blogs and Key has only taken it up in a desperate attempt to divert from National’s policy leaks. It’s meant to be a response […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:32 pm, September 6th, 2008 - 55 comments
Lord Ashcroft is a worry. Not just to John Key, who had to admit that he didn’t know why Ascroft had met him at Key’s home: it just happened to be in his diary. According to an article in the Daily Telegraph, he is also a worry to many in the Conservative Party. Ashcroft “does […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:31 pm, September 3rd, 2008 - 24 comments
Perhaps Mr Key is feeling a little regretful about comparing himself to Barack Obama. Certainly the chutzpah inherent in such a comparison has been noted – including these comments in the ODT today from Simon Cunliffe: “it’s quite natural that a political leader such as the “young, smart and rich” John Key might think about […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, September 3rd, 2008 - 5 comments
Talking about the Nat billboard campaign on Wammo’s show this morning, Key said it was going to positive and on message*. Umm, when’s the positive bit coming? Because ‘wave goodbye to higher taxes, not your loved ones’ is not a positive message. It’s negatively framed and intentionally so. If the Nats wanted to be positive […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:26 am, September 2nd, 2008 - 38 comments
TV3 revealed last night that John Key has recently met with billionaire Tory donor Lord Michael Ashcroft. Lord Ashcroft clearly preferred that the meeting be kept secret and only a glimpse of him was caught as he departed Auckland airport in his private jet. Garner: “Has anyone in the National Party met Lord Ashcroft in […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, September 2nd, 2008 - 36 comments
John Key’s attempt to ride on Obama’s coattails has been rightly ridiculed in the New Zealand press, but the differences go much deeper than their respective speaking abilities or Key’s charisma deficit. As this quote from Obama in a recent piece in The Nation shows, when you look at whose interests they’re serving the contrast […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 pm, September 1st, 2008 - 10 comments
Gordon Campbell spends some time examining Key’s likeability factor: “That’s why Key’s gamble over Winston Peters is so interesting because it could help to unravel that image. If Peters can ultimately provide sufficient satisfactory evidence of where the money has gone, Key will have been guilty of a rush to judgement. Alone, that might not […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:04 pm, September 1st, 2008 - 33 comments
“I’m a bit like (Barack) Obama,” – Key Of course, National has been trying to link Key to Obama because Obama is probably going to win and Key hopes to piggy-back on that. But, as we’ve seen before, they really have nothing in common: Turns out Key has more in common with another fellow born […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, August 27th, 2008 - 41 comments
Say what you will about his politics, you can’t beat Cullen for wit. Here he is on the similarities between Labour and National following Williamson’s enthusiastic statements of National policy: The full clip is here. Listen to Key plead to his caucus, and listen what he’s pleading for them to do – “If National wants to win an […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:07 pm, August 20th, 2008 - 62 comments
Watching Key on Breakfast this morning I was surprised to see him talking about the need for higher wages (about two thirds of the way through). That’s nice to hear but given National’s policy is to reduce work rights and make it harder for working Kiwis to negotiate a better deal it seems a bit […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:08 pm, August 16th, 2008 - 78 comments
Remember the photos of McDonald’s wrappers strewn on a grass verge that John Key expected us to believe was evidence people had been rifling through his electorate office’s rubbish? Was there ever a more transparent attempt to deflect attention from a bad story with an obviously faked picture? No-one believed that Key’s rubbish really had […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:46 pm, August 13th, 2008 - 12 comments
Insight into Mr Key costing his tax policy (lots of clever bits, best viewed in fullscreen) – hosted by 08wire
Written By: - Date published: 3:45 pm, August 13th, 2008 - 22 comments
The secret agenda scandal has reminded many people that, behind John Key’s smile, National’s leaders are still the same bunch who were cutting benefits and flogging off assets in the 1990s, or people who came into Parliament hoping to continue those policies. That’s not good for National’s election hopes. So, what have they done? Remove […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, August 13th, 2008 - 16 comments
A lot of you won’t remember it but there was a time in this country when being on a benefit wasn’t seen as the fault of the person receiving it and the idea of a social welfare system was about just that: the welfare of our society. It took a campaign of right-wing scaremongering through […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:26 am, August 13th, 2008 - 18 comments
ENGLISH: So we’re sitting here saying the punters are keen to keep it. They’re facing a recession. The last thing we want is to spend the whole election campaign with families of four on TV saying ‘Mr Key’s taking money off us’. You can’t do that. So later on we’re gonna have to have a […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, August 12th, 2008 - 44 comments
‘No ifs, no buts, no maybes’ – that’s the phrase Bill English chose to use when denying he had any intentions of launching a coup against John Key after the election. It’s a phrase that is burned indelibly into many New Zealander’s memories, not least of all English’s; a phrase heavy with connotations of deceit. […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, August 12th, 2008 - 57 comments
Many New Zealand politicians give away a large portion of their salaries to needy causes but they don’t make a song and dance about it because a) lots of MPs do it b) boasting about charity donations is a rich man’s game, and the reason we have decent salaries for MPs is to prevent politics […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:01 am, August 12th, 2008 - 20 comments
National activist/advisor Matthew Hooton on Nine to Noon: ‘the National Party leadership group is very sensitive about security. They look at the last election campaign that was lost on basically matters of security: the leak of the ‘gone by lunchtime’ notes and the Brethren link.’ No. National lost because it had a secret agenda; not […]
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