I don’t ever buy the bloody NBR, ever. Rob Hosking’s fetish for declaring everything to the left of Caligula as ‘old school Frankfurt School marxism’ is too reminiscent of undergrad Commerce Students regurgitating whatever they had heard on ZB in Daddys BMW on the way from their gated compound each morning.
NBR is like the Paul Henry Show but with about 10 000% more pretension. The pages are populated by opinion shapers whom you wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire. It’s wall to wall rich white male arseholes who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. At least when the mighty Jock Anderson was running it, the NBR had some sense of humour, now it takes itself far too seriously. The way a Parking Warden does.
Maybe I’m bitching because buying the NBR bloody well cost me $9.95, or maybe I was just grumpy because I had to fly to my least favourite place in NZ, Wellington, for the NORML conference (I’ll post on that later) either way, I had to buy the bloody thing because Hooton has done one of those columns you really need to read.
He’s broken down the numbers comparing how National polled leading up to the last election and how they are polling now and reveals that the insanely flawed landline opinion polls, while promoted by the mainstream media as a done deal for National, actually reveal that National have every chance of losing the election this year.
Hooton’s recommendation is the same one I suggested National were considering this week which is to pull National candidates at the last moment and leave the 3 seats free for National’s coalition partners ACT, Conservative Party and United Future to win. The mainstream media mouthpieces are already touting such an arrangement as ‘cleaner’ for MMP (Tova O’Brien was describing it as such on TV3 this week ), so the corporate media will certainly start selling such gerrymandering as better than the current nudge and wink cup of tea. Personally, I think removing the candidate altogether is far worse. With the nudge and wink, the Party are still leaving it up to the voter to choose if they want to follow that strategy or not, by removing the option altogether the Party are saying, ‘screw the voters, you’ll do what we want regardless of your choice’.
The problem for Key is that amongst urbane educated folk, the sexist, homophobic bigotry a party like the Conservative Party seems to embrue would damage National’s female vote which is under considerable challenge by the Greens and their desire to decriminalise abortion. Anyone with an education above basic literacy and science would find the idea of John Key, Colin Craig and Jamie Whyte Government to be terrifying. Key’s greatest strength in the last 6 years has been his ability to spin hard right policy as moderate, it’s the reason he cuddled up to the Maori Party even when he didn’t need their votes. The relationship created a political camouflage of moderation for Key, that pretence would vanish with Colin Craig and Jamie Whyte.
Here’s the twist though. If National are so desperate they pull their candidate in East Coast Bays (and it looks increasingly like McCully has lost a vast amount of power within National and looks like he can be pushed around far easier than Mark Mitchell can be pushed around – which in itself is an indictment of the lack of muscle McCully now has), Labour has a secret weapon – Greg Milner-White.
If Labour needed a beige Christian champion to rally the fine beige Christian voters of East Coast Bays, they couldn’t have prayed for a better candidate than Greg Milner-White. Deeply committed to his Christian community, Milner-White represents a less Conservative Party book burning style of religion to the more urbane East Coast Bays broad church.
After being so tricked and manipulated by National who will pull out their candidate at the last minute, a deeply unchristian thing to do I might add, the fine people of East Coast Bays may decide to select a leader more worthy of their faith than a moon landing denial chemtrail fruit loop.
I suspect National party supporters will vote strategically in order to secure a win. Noble and upstanding candidates will not be a prominent influence in this election – we’re talking about politics after all.
Couldn’t agree more with everything you have said.
I live in a street of about 30 houses in East Coast Bays and know most of the people.I would say at present it would be about a 50/50 split between people voting National or Labour /Greens.The D.N.A Nat. voters you can’t do much about, but their are others who are not at all happy with the way things are tracking,(eg. housing affordability for their children,pollution of our rivers and lakes etc.),and I feel if given a credible alternative they could be persuaded .Gary Knapp did it years ago through extensive door knocking.
However the whole demographic of the area has changed dramatically since then. While our street houses predominantly born and bred Kiwis who have been in the street along time ,vast areas are populated by well off South Africans, Chinese and new arriving English, whose grasp of New Zealand politics, (both historical and current) is very limited and therefore won’t fully understand the ramifications of their voting decisions .Hence they could well just tick the status quo unless their is some radical policy announcement that peaks their interest.
One things for sure,the people I talk to think Colin Craig is as mad as a meat axe, so come on National, do N.Z a favour ; stand the absolutely hopeless McCully down and give Colin a go! Pretty please !
P.s Don’t believe anything Hooton writes or says.He’s a recidivist bullshit artist ;and to think that people actually pay him money for his diatribes.
Passing thought…. what would happen to National if Hooton, Boag, Henry ,Hosking, Smith, Plunket, Wood,G.Espiner,Armstrong,Watkins,O’Sullivan,Ralston,Clifton,Dann,Soper, Gower and Garner all got hit by a bus tomorrow ?
Your comment about the recent arrivals voting for status quo with no understanding of the ramifications is a perfect example of why only people born in New Zealand should be allowed to vote in the general election.
So it looks as if people are happy with nearly 1 million newly minted citizens with no understanding of the history of this country, nor appreciation for the fact that Labour is actually Conservative, while National is more akin to the Tea Party, making the majority of the decisions on who is fit to run this country.
Lets not forget that we now have close to 1 million voters who were not even born in Zealand, having their say. That’s close to 50% of all eligible voters.
Giving the right to vote only to those who were born in New Zealand, or as a sweetener; who have lived here for 30 years or more, will mean at least history and understanding will give them the right to vote.
On the plus side, if you’re born in New Zealand, but you now live overseas, give them the right to vote as well and remove that requirement for them to check in at Auckland Airport once every three years.
I’d be crying.
Only because you forgot to mention Marcus Lush in the list being hit by the bus. Lush’s sycophantic Monday mornings with John Key’s scripted electioneering ruins the beginning of my Monday. …
Apparently ZB listeners must get the same gobshite and PR electioneering tripe-spin … http://www.whitsundaytimes.com.au/news/kiwi-pms-pr-slip-reveals-secret-details-killing/2285831/
Agree; very remiss of me.There’s so many.Lush is a fraud .He made out he was all environmentally aware with his North, South programmes but then sucks up to a that does’nt give a shit. Forgot to throw in the dregs Farrar and Slater as well.The list goes on .
What it highlights is what the Left are up against in getting any sort of balanced message out there.
The Right have the psychos stationed at all the critical positions across all forms of media outlets.
Getting rid of the excellent TV7 with Citizen A was all part of ensuring no other point of view was to be aired.
This media dominance is scary stuff for NZ and it needs to be broken.
That’s why National are spitting bile and venom over Internet Mana.They are powerless to stop their message.
At last, a circuit breaker !
It’s a double bluff Martyn.
The left have been running “hold your collective and separate noses and vote National” classes, to counter sneaky tea-bagging far-right ACT/Conservatives/United Future candidates.
So obviously there have been feverish discussions by Slater/Hooton/Master Fishy Manipulator McCully/The Hollow Men wondering how to sneak legalise incest; hate homos and homosapiennes; willing-seller-willing-buyer parties past unsuspecting voters.
If National’s pet MSM tell the left National are going to pull the National candidates, the right are so arrogant they think it will confuse clear-thinking left voters, who will just leave the polling booth on 20th Sept, go outside and hug a tree. They think the left won’t have a Plan B.
Plan B If National pull their candidates to let a tea-bagging fascist in, then the left vote for the candidate on the left who has most chance of winning from the left.
Other TDB readers might have a better Plan B. I’m sitting here shaking my head at the depths the centre-right will stoop to, to find an alternative to tea-bag right-wing fascists into their coalition.
Here’s the thing. If the scenario is that National has every chance of losing then that is the only nod and wink Epsom voters need. John Key doesn’t even enter the picture. Everyone knows what the PM will say but whether or not he says it makes no difference. If Epsom wants a right wing Government most will electorate vote Act and party vote National. It’s called tactical voting, which MMP allows for, quite different from coat tailing and other unholy alliances. Is there something about this which is difficult to understand?
…and the MMP tactical vote policy for the left is ‘hold their nose” and vote for the National candidate, party vote the party of the left of their choice.
…if National pull their candidates before the election, the left can still MMP tactically vote by analysing the best respective left candidate available in an electorate without a National candidate, “hold one nostril” vote best electorate left, party vote their preferred left wing party.
If Key climbs in the extreme right-wing closet to cavort with legalise incestroes, mysoginistic homophobes and the willing seller-willing buyer coalition by effectivelly firing his own party candidates, it will show how desperate he and the cabal are to have a third term of neoliberal destruction of Aotearoa.
My pick is for National’s cabal to pull the candidates to confuse the left, but we’re not that dumb are we? Are we?
Matt? Laila? David? We’re not that dumb to allow National to coat-tail three right-wing “moon landing denial chemtrail fruit loop – incest-legalising, sellers of votes” Are we?
Here is a quote from The Hoo:
MATTHEW HOOTON says:
JUNE 11, 2014 AT 2:32 PM
The candidate interruptus date is: 26 August:
So if the National candidates are pulled in desperation for another three year term for John Key and the cabal, the left will have 24 days to mobilise.
But they won’t need to pull candidates though, National is 55% in the polls and can govern alone. They don’t to pull candidates? Do they?
Is the “NBR” the “Nat Brigade Rorting publication”?
I do not read it, would not recommend it, but I fear that some writing there do have some economic qualifications, albeit often with an ideological leaning towards the right and NatACT.
I prefer to read overseas economic publications, be this the Economist, even the Wall Street Journal at times, and what else there is, but I do so with utter caution and alert skepticism.
New Zealand is such a small place, where anything you say and write about economic or social issues instantly condemns you to be put into a niche, a corner, and labels you. And the media, controlled by private enterprises and shareholders, they have asserted their interests here much more so than in most other “developed” countries.
Reading the NBR, listening to the “New Zealand Initiative”, or even the “New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union”, and other organisations will NOT inform you, they will all have an ideological tilt, to misinform you.
So to get some balance, we need to head overseas and study what happened there, as the media we have is not going to challenge or inform us, they are part of the problem, they are serving the dominant interests here, they want you to know NADA and to simply shut up your mind and voice, and vote accordingly, for the ever lasting leader of glorious achievements.
I fear that people here get nothing much more than propaganda and endless lies, and it is important to spread the news, to make people wake up, so they will vote accordingly, and not fall for lies and distractions.
So,so true Marc.
I’m kinda hoping that they’ll try it. I figure that such arrogant manipulation will backfire on them and all the National voters in those electorates will vote Labour.
One element that seems to be creeping in with the pre-election build up is that now hardly anyone seems to actually believe the MSM polls, either on the left or right. Right-wing pundits like Hooton are starting to ring the alarm bells because they sense that the information coming from these polls is far from the truth. The pollsters are so concerned with ensuring National’s re-election that they are risking undermining their champions, or it also could be that they are simply too lazy or inefficient to do a proper job.
[…] The second problem with this tactics is that the blessed people of East Coast Bays may cringe at Colin Craig’s book burning form of religion and instead turn to the Labour candidate. As I pointed out last week… […]
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