The Patrick Gower Hour of Power

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“I think those days of journos drinking with the politicians are long gone.” – Patrick Gower November 2012

A disclosure of sorts first, The Nation actually did ask me for my opinion on Cunliffe’s tactics this year, sadly they seemed to have ignored all my thoughts.

The Nation, that great giant taxpayer guzzling current affairs show in the sky received almost a cool million  from NZ on Air last year, not sure what TV 3 are getting now the show is run in house, but it makes a welcome return in election year. The old version was stodgy like week old porridge but the new season fronted by Paddy promises far more entertainment.

Sure Patrick is now just so addicted to the ‘gotcha’ moment that he seems to self-invent most of them, but he’s enjoyable if your measure of fun is watching Orca whales tearing Sea lions to pieces. Watching him get a bit of a spanking by Cunliffe is fun, reading Gower’s hatchet blog on the interview is eye rolling, it reads like it was edited with Steven Joyce actually sitting next to him.

I love how Gower can’t tell the difference between Cunliffe being comfortably well off and John Key having $50million+. Interestingly, it’s never really been made clear how much cash Key has. Before he made his run for leader, sources for him polled people as to how much wealth a NZ PM could have before people started feeling questionable about how they obtained that money. The amounts were $50m, $100m, $150m and $200m.

Apparently people overwhelmingly polled $50m as the maximum wealth a NZ PM should have. Surprise surprise Key is publicly valued at $50m.

The real joy other than watching Patrick getting taken to task by Cunliffe is the Jamie Whyte interview. Whyte is a train wreck smashing into a primary school loaded up with sharp glass and medical waste. He gloriously spends the first part of the entire interview stating he doesn’t want to talk about incest or polygamy. It’s painful because by arguing that he doesn’t want to talk about incest or polygamy, he is of course talking about incest and polygamy.

It was always going to be a risk promoting a man as leader who has no political skills, but this is ludicrous. It’s not like ACT aren’t shy of a bob or two, so surely they would pay to media train Whyte not to make these kinds of excruciating cock ups, yet here he is sounding like a British toff totally disconnected with reality.

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Why, why, why would any Politician agree to appear on Ruminator? A belt way site frequented by the Wellington Emerald Stormtroopers with no wider value other than to get tripped up and ripped to pieces by the mainstream media. Did Whyte learn nothing from Cunliffe’s appearance on Ruminator?

If the interviews are good, the media panel is a total joke. Bill Ralston, Josie Pagani and Jordan Williams – who the hell is the ‘left’ perspective there? Pagani is a Fox News Democrat, she’s the person you have on a current affairs show when you want the pretence of balance without the annoying need to actually have a left wing perspective. Her inclusion on any forum is a sure sign that the debate is as fair and balanced as Fox News. You would have thought having Gower – the journalist most responsible for the manufactured leadership coup story at the 2012 conference lead a debate of right wingers to discuss the appointment of Matt McCarten was a broadcasting audacity too far.

Apparently it wasn’t.

The Nation is important to understand what the right  want you to believe while Q&A is important to know what the establishment want to ignore.

Thank God for the Blogs this election.

9 COMMENTS

  1. The Nation, that great giant taxpayer guzzling current affairs show in the sky received almost a cool million from NZ on Air last year, not sure what TV 3 are getting now the show is run in house, but it makes a welcome return in election year.

    Pretty much the same as last year: $899,250, but for 42 episodes, not 36.

  2. “..here he is sounding like a British toff..”

    Funny you should say that, that’s exactly what I thought while watching his interview.

    Very good, Martyn. Good to see someone nailing the Fox News-like propaganda on the head.

    Can’t agree more, thank f#*% for blogs!

    • There is no qualification system for good sense and future thinking (or retrograde) policy. It tends to be that if it not expressible in the vernacular, in NZ, it is over the head and attempts to convey such understandings or visions are deemed “toffworthy”. They are probably not lay-z-boy friendly, do not contain enough action and drama, and do not press enough basic buttons to gain traction or, thusly, credibility.

  3. Patrick Gower’s self satisfied smirk when he talks about Cunliffe being “tricky”, gets right up my snorer. How about, “Shifty Key” Mr Gower?

  4. Hi Martyn, you describe Jamie Whyte as a train wreck, now David Cunliffe is being described as a shipwreck. There seem to be wrecks all over the place. Will the ABC brigade in caucus allow him to stay on or just give up and raise the white flag now.

  5. I watched this last night. Jamie Whyte was like a gleaming new train that is reluctantly sent into a dilapidated station full of broken glass and street kids (ie, the panel), where the stationmaster (“Paddy”), drunk on white wine, furiously demands the new schedule!

    ps. This sentence is a beauty, Author:

    “The Nation is important to understand what the right want you to believe while Q&A is important to know what the establishment want to ignore”

    To paraphrase 🙂

    Watching The Nation shows us what drugs The Right are pushing, while Q&A shows us up The Establishment’s skirt.

    • I’m not sure I should have posted the frivolous above before thinking more about everything in this article and that program. Sorry if any feeling offended.

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