In this part of the transcript of John Key’s Aug 14 standup, Key repeats dubious spin lines, & tries to maintain his Mr Clean image. Topics include Jason Ede, Judith Collins, Bronwyn Pullar. Key tries to implicate left wing blogs, naming The Standard
Tom Scott says it all. And the DomPost reports that National hopes to get their campaign back on track by showing an eight rowing together. That’ll work.
Accountability is not dirty politics. You can’t be smeared with the truth. John Key’s lines are as worthless as his promises of ministerial accountability.
Key’s giving Collins a “last last” chance! After she’s outed an innocent public servant to an amoral blogger! Duncan Garner said it six months ago about Oravida: “John Key won’t like this, but by Helen Clark’s standards he looks weak.” That’s too generous – by anybody’s standards he looks weak, as well as unprincipled. He’s no leader. Update: Email here – name, job title and phone numbers including mobile
How slippery is John Key? Part one of transcript of Key’s press standup last Thursday. On accessing Labour’s website private details, OIAs to the SIS, Dirty Politics, Nicky Hager and Mr Slater. [Updated]
Guyon Espiner’s interview on Radio NZ today, exposes the moral failings of John Key’s leadership -as Key attempts to divert, & justify the dirty game that NZ politics has become under his watch. Partial transcript of the interview: to be continued Updated: Transcript completed
Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics tells of the “two track strategy” of John Key’s leadership of the National Party & the country: a smiley nice front, & vicious, covert black ops behind the scenes. Key has overseen one of the darkest, nastiest periods in NZ politics. Vote Left for necessary, democratic change, for people-centred governance.
It’s John Key. In a wide-ranging interview, he tried to explain how “the left” conspired to ensure over the last three days that they burnt an effigy of him, used a few swear words about him on You-Tube, ran a satirical video, and Nicky Hager launched a book at the normal after-work time! No wonder his minders would rather he didn’t do stand-ups.
The intention of this post is to examine the similarities and differences between the hacking of Cameron Slater’s communications on the one hand, and the hacking of the Labour Party donor database on the other. There are two important issues to determine in both cases and I will cover them separately. The first is the legality of the hacking and the second is the ethics of using the resulting information regardless of whether the obtaining of the information in the first instance was unlawful.
So the book is an expose of the Slater-Ede-Key Dirty Politics machine, based on data acquired and leaked to Hager. Will Update: Update: Hager to be on Campbell Live tonight.
The National led Government are desperate to present the good news stories to promote the success of the past six years of their governance. They have increased the budget and the numbers of their spin doctors to ensure that it is mainly positive messages that make into the public domain. The Government cleverly manipulates data to hide the extent of poverty the degradation of the environment and the success of our economy. Of course most of us who live in the real world know that National’s reality is a falsely constructed one.
How to make your very own New Zealand Prime Minister. Even better looking than this vessel.
Images from today’s mainstream media news: tales of class, crime, drugs, disasters…… and jet-setting beneficiaries.
National is now targeting David Cunliffe and his family. Metiria Turei was attacked for living in a castle and wearing designer jackets, and now David Cunliffe is being attacked for being wealthy. The criticisms miss the point. There is nothing inherently wrong with being wealthy. But there is everything wrong in setting fire to the ladder of social support after you have had the opportunity to climb it.
So, the PM is hinting that his tips about Winston Peters visiting Kim Dotcom 3 times, came from Cameron Slater. But then, who was Slater’s informant? Key admits to on-going contact with Slater. [Update: transcript of John Key stand up vid, Stuff – Update 2: transcript edited; 3 News]
Celebrity golf! Which one will get voted off the island first!? Meanwhile the world burns, the poor struggle, and the wealth gap continues to be a blight on our country.
John Key’s great idea for job creation – his cycleway project – has produced some benefits, but is a patchwork production. Some sections will be user pays to fund maintenance. Meanwhile the job creation benefits have been limited.
The cult of the super rich, cheer led by the uncritical echo chamber in the MSM. Those struggling in poverty receive a few crumbs of charity, promoting superficial “good will” by those indulging in the orgy of consumerist excess. Underlying causes & solutions are ignored.
A charity is taking on the funding of the essential work on monitoring poverty, in the face of Paula Bennett, Bill English and John Key et al failing to do their job: a return to Dickensian & Edwardian times.
Today’s decision that John Banks will stand trial for signing a false donations return signals the beginning of the end of the Key government. Increasingly it resembles the last days of the Shipley government only worse, as corruption replaces shambles. The decision also puts the famous tea party conversation between Key and Banks, where they stitched up the deal to provide the present Government’s majority, into new perspective.
Te Reo Putake starts speculating on when, how, and by whom John Key will be knifed in the back by. The question of if it is before or after the losing the next election. So far only Keith Holyoake has managed to retire as a leader of National, so after Labour’s tidy leadership changes we’re all looking forward to the political splatterfest that only National can provide.
With Cunliffe’s Labour in the ascendance, NAct and/supporters pull out their bag of dirty and deceptively manipulative, Hollow Men, tricks. Adviser to John Key & Boris Johnson, Mark Textor, will most likely be used again: ruthless attack politics, playing on fears & prejudices.
Two very good speeches in the General Debate in the House from opposition leaders. They highlight Nick Smith’s dodgy record, & why he should be stood down as a Minister in Key’s “Dark, dirty & heartless” government. [Update: Key – on (dis)honesty]
It’s not been surprising to see National’s dirty tricks machine groan back to life over the last week to attack Cunliffe.
And you’ll not be surprised to know more is due over the next few days.
What is surprising is just how hamfistedly they’re doing it.
The Nats’ PR-managed conference stifled democratic debate & bright ideas, and diverted from significant issues. Armstrong attempts to talk it up, while exposing Key’s win-at-all-costs ruthlessness. Meanwhile: speakers announced for democratic meeting to Kill the GCSB Bill [Updated – Hagar also speaking]. [Update: Gordon Campbell – ‘Nanny National‘]
Schadenfreude.
First they came for……………….
In a desperate move to stop the spygate political scandal from reaching into National’s machine, Key has thrown Parliamentary Services head, Geoff Thorn, to the wolves (if you think he jumped I’ve got a bridge you may be interested in buying).
Who was missing from the Mighty River and SkyCity launches? Being seen at the front of positive government stories is a big part of the PM’s job, unless concerns over protecting Brand Key override that. The fact Key has been a no-show at these two announcements of central planks of National’s agenda tells you a lot about what the Nats’ polling says about them.
Key on Gilmore on front page of today’s DomPost: “In the end, to make a contribution, you have to have integrity, and to have integrity there has to be a directness and fullness in your answers.” That’s why Key has no integrity about GCSB – there was no directness and fulness in his answers about it, either in Parliament or to the “knucklehead” media.
Today’s anonymous Dominion Post editorial points to the beginning of John Key’s fall from grace. It centres on Key’s personal qualities, continues to support the MSM’s support of personality politics, glosses over the serious issues masked by Key’s (alleged) amnesia, and uses a false equivalence with Helen Clark.
A Jackson PR video promoting NZ scenery as a beautiful backdrop for the Hobbit & tourism; a Campbell Live video on a Dannevirke protest against Big Oil exploiting their area; an anti-fracking Canadian team filming in NZ.
I knew John Key was getting desperate, but really?
Weapons of Mass Destruction?
How stupid does he think we are?
Nixon famously said: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”. John Key would have you believe the same thing, that when his agency, the GCSB, has been breaking the law, the problem lies with the law. No – the problem lies with the GCSB and its oversight. Watergate here we come…
Today The Hobbit employment dispute is revived, exposing gaps between principle and practice. Jackson defends his role; some of Labour’s ABC club will attend the premier; John Key-speak weaves a contradictory path of populist nonsense, linking the movie, 100%Pure, 100% Middle-earth and Macdonald’s.
