With Crosby Textor by his side, John Key has since learned to employ all manner of specialist PR techniques including ad homs, blame-shifting, distraction, use of Dirty Politics proxies to defuse the situation, and false equivalence, all woven together in an intricately performed semantic shuffle designed to provide wiggle room for when he does get caught.
Key’s attempts to drum up enthusiasm for this year’s upcoming budget have fallen absolutely flat. And as usual, promised funding actually represents an ongoing cut in real terms.
Key won’t take any action over Simon Bridges’ clear breach (excellent work by Rob Salmond at Polity) of the Cabinet Manual. So, might as well burn the thing, at least for the remainder of this government’s term. Key has no intention of being held to account, or holding his ministers to account, by or for anything at all.
John Key’s latest pronouncement is that achieving a budget surplus is as difficult as landing a 747 on a pinhead. Michael Cullen must be a super airline pilot if this is the case.
Apparently this budget surplus that the Nats have been going on about for the last 6 years is an “artificial” target that is “like trying to land a 747 on a pin head”.
Miranda Devine is the person who recently wrote a really obsequious article on John Key in the Daily Telegraph where she described him as one of the best Conservative Prime Ministers in the world. But a reading of her other published material suggests that caution should be applied before applying too much weight to her opinions.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with Bryce Edwards’ article except that it ignores how National Ltd™ Police Ministers have successively sat by and done nothing in response to the on-going police failings.
John Key and National have staked a huge amount of their credibility on returning the country’s books to surplus this financial year. Looks like they are going to fail.
So it’s not just loonie leftie bloggers noting the political element to the attack on Campbell Live.
Details of a public meeting hosted by the West Auckland Labour MPs about housing issues to be held tomorrow night.
Last week National shut down Peters’ attempt to introduce a Bill on paedophile name suppression. Presumably this was out of petty spite at Peters’ Northland victory, but in the context of the Thatcher revelations this was surely an issue that would have been worth debating.
Trouble is brewing in National’s ranks. In a series of recent tweets occasional Standard commenter Matthew Hooton outlines his reasons for now opposing John Key’s Government.
As New Zealand’s dollar approaches parity with Australia’s a responsible Government should be pondering the implications and acting in the country’s best interests. No such luck in Aotearoa …
John Armstrong in the Herald and Tracy Watkins in the Dominion Post have both written opinion pieces on the implications of Winston Peters’ win in Northland which reach very similar conclusions.
More economic genius from the Nats.
Turns out that “Planet Key” is not an election advertisement after all.
Winston Peters is poised to announce who will replace him on the NZ First list. It may even be someone who can lead the party after he retires. There’s one really obvious candidate; an ex MP suffering from relevancy deficit syndrome and keen to get back in the political spotlight. It’s ….
Denis Tegg has persuaded the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to inquire whether the GCSB is conducting mass surveillance on the Kafkaesque grounds that the legislation allows this to happen if a party ought reasonably to expect that the communication may be intercepted.
Simon Bridges announced yesterday the release of the 2015 block offer. Potentially oil companies could be drilling in deep sea pristine environmental areas off the West Coast where the endangered Maui’s Dolphin lives. He calls for a “mixed balance” of energy generation. But all this means is that he wants the good mixed with the bad.
Key ran out on failed candidate Mike Osborne in Northland, just like he ran out on Melissa Lee in Mt Albert.
Congratulations to Labour for a very clever strategy in the Northland by-election – lulling and gulling John Key into thinking they were going to run a conventional proxy-partyvote campaign, where National would have the upper hand. Key, the rockstar politician, also thought Andrew Little would be on the training wheels. He got that badly wrong; Little’s handling was superb.
Hey, all you folk angry with Aussie cricket team sledging – how do you put up with John Key PM?
There are many specific reasons why National lost Northland, but arrogance is the thread running through all of them.
Steven Joyce is adamant that Northland was unique and what it really needed was improved infrastructure such as roads and broadband. Joyce has a narrow, blinkered view of the world. Sadly the election defeat didn’t remove his blinkers or open his eyes to look at Northlands real needs.
Winston Peters’ win in Northland yesterday was based on turnout that was significantly higher than turnout for any other recent by election. And occurred in no small part because of some adept handling of messaging of support by Andrew Little.
A selection of the wit and wisdom of Twitter tonight. Compare and contrast the Labour and National leaders.
Is anyone else experiencing a bit of political shellshock?
A post to allow for the discussion of the Northland Buy Election result.
Russel Norman tries to get the truth out of Simon Bridges. Bridges really really doesn’t want to admit that NZ’s emissions have increased by 20% from 2008 to 2012. 5 minutes and 10 seconds of painful nonsense to get an answer…
“John Key heckled in Northland” – ouch.
Stuff: “Peters says that over the next 48 hours the only thing National voters want from Key is an explanation for why they’re having a by-election in the first place.”
The most egregious feature remains the sheer banality. Its like John Key can’t help himself. Because most National Ltd™ voters really don’t care and because the MSM just accepts the deceit as “one of those things,” he’s been able to get away with it scot-free for more than six years.
Well, it’s pretty much a done deal now. Winston’s going to win Northland. But who’s the biggest loser?
It looks to me like the early voting for Northland is likely to be close to or more than 50% of the total vote. Part of that is because it is a by-election. Part because of National’s hapless and tainted candidates (past and present) going against effective opponents. But also due to the strong trend to early voting. It will need to cause changes in electioneering.
Vote Winston (did I say that?) Update: Former Labour Cabinet Minister Colin Moyle thinks the same.
