Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, April 17th, 2015 - 18 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, April 15th, 2015 - 8 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, April 15th, 2015 - 54 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, April 14th, 2015 - 16 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:23 am, April 14th, 2015 - 69 comments
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”.
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, April 13th, 2015 - 46 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 12th, 2015 - 84 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, April 11th, 2015 - 67 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, April 11th, 2015 - 140 comments
So it’s not just loonie leftie bloggers noting the political element to the attack on Campbell Live.
Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, April 10th, 2015 - 186 comments
Written By: - Date published: 2:37 pm, April 8th, 2015 - 10 comments
Details of a public meeting hosted by the West Auckland Labour MPs about housing issues to be held tomorrow night.
Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, April 8th, 2015 - 22 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, April 8th, 2015 - 172 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, April 7th, 2015 - 309 comments
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 …
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, April 4th, 2015 - 90 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, April 3rd, 2015 - 96 comments
More economic genius from the Nats.
Written By: - Date published: 5:48 pm, April 2nd, 2015 - 24 comments
Turns out that “Planet Key” is not an election advertisement after all.
Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, April 1st, 2015 - 148 comments
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 ….
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, March 31st, 2015 - 21 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:14 am, March 31st, 2015 - 25 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, March 31st, 2015 - 55 comments
Key ran out on failed candidate Mike Osborne in Northland, just like he ran out on Melissa Lee in Mt Albert.
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 pm, March 30th, 2015 - 64 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, March 30th, 2015 - 33 comments
Hey, all you folk angry with Aussie cricket team sledging – how do you put up with John Key PM?
Written By: - Date published: 7:39 am, March 30th, 2015 - 86 comments
There are many specific reasons why National lost Northland, but arrogance is the thread running through all of them.
Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, March 29th, 2015 - 25 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, March 29th, 2015 - 62 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 pm, March 28th, 2015 - 19 comments
A selection of the wit and wisdom of Twitter tonight. Compare and contrast the Labour and National leaders.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 pm, March 28th, 2015 - 310 comments
Is anyone else experiencing a bit of political shellshock?
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 pm, March 28th, 2015 - 201 comments
A post to allow for the discussion of the Northland Buy Election result.
Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, March 27th, 2015 - 44 comments
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…
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, March 27th, 2015 - 98 comments
“John Key heckled in Northland” – ouch.
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