John Armstrong’s last column for the Herald is a reminder of what a fine writer and journalist he has been.
Covering 30years of politics, Armstrong’s must read column is testimony to the fascinating power struggles he has witnessed…
When it comes to the Budgets, the most memorable was Ruth Richardson’s 1991 “Mother of All Budgets”. This was the high-water mark of National’s enthusiasm for the free market and belief that user-pays should apply across the social services, such as overnight stays in public hospitals. It was someone’s bad planning that Richardson’s full-bore offensive against what remained of the welfare state was delivered on a Tuesday prior to the following weekend’s annual National Party Conference.
It didn’t take long for National’s large backbench to work out that swallowing Richardson’s agenda writ large was the political equivalent of drinking poisoned Kool-Aid in Jonestown. National’s pocket battleship remained unperturbed and impervious to argument — as I found out on the Friday night of the conference. Among the huge pile of Budget-related press statements was one announcing that the Press Gallery would be required to pay rent for their offices at Parliament. Not surprisingly, the statement did not declare which Cabinet Minister would be responsible for implementing this policy.
In a shabby disco bar opposite the Christchurch Town Hall Richardson held court, castigating the Press Gallery as “a bunch of wimps” before taking the stage for a karaoke-inspired rendition of I am Woman.
…Armstrong understood power and his political columns were a good inside view to that power. Did he get it right all the time? No he didn’t and to his credit in his last column he acknowledges those times and names them.
That’s a class act.
Yes Armstrong got it wrong from time to time – but who doesn’t (Christ – I thought NZers would recoil from Key post Dirty Politics yet they rushed to embrace him). The times Armstrong got it right however outweigh poor columns like calling on Cunliffe to resign or attacking Gordon Campbell and Bryce Edwards, and those times he got it right he was following the true mission of the Fourth Estate by speaking truth to power.
He didn’t sweep Nicky Hager’s ‘Other People’s War’ aside – he championed it. He demanded accountability in the wake of Dirty Politics and he chastised the powerful more times than he ignored their abuses of power.
His final words on the true nature of politics are important..
Never forget that politics boils down to power — winning it and, just as importantly, retaining it. The fascination comes in watching how politicians play the game. Sometimes the tactics are mind-blowing in their sheer audacity and inventiveness.
…those words are important because NZers seem to have forgotten that politics is about power and that those wielding it are prepared to do anything to keep it. The disbelief many seemed to have towards the allegations inside ‘Dirty Politics’ and that John Key would never do those sorts of things shows how far removed we have come from the reality.
I may not have agreed with Armstrong a lot of the time, and there were occasions where I saw his commentary as the problem, but I respected his role and his position, no one understood the void that is middle NZ better than Armstrong.
The Herald is a lesser paper without him and our fractured journalistic spectrum just became a tad less interesting.
Best wishes to John and his whanau.
Perhaps he ought to have bowed out sooner, before he became part of the narrative by allowing his personal biases to involve him in pure political spin, exemplified by the Donghua Lui/Cunliffe affair. Then your words of praise my be easier to accept.
As it turns out, I’m only too happy to see the back of him.
Will we ever get the edit function back on TDB? Sometimes it appears, othertimes not.
Agree with you Richard.
I always found him to be average at best. Most of the time shite.
That’s why people don’t like old school, that’s to say phisically going to where the action is as opposed to trolling social media and repeating generic posts for click bait purposes.
Power and greed that is what rules New Zealand now.
It is time for those without power (so far) to stand up and SEIZE power, and take it off the bandits that ruin this country and the rest of the world.
Those that are too afraid have already lost power, as fear is the greatest enemy of power.
Stand up, be counted, and DEMAND your right to YOUR SHARE of power, dear folks.
Get a spine, dear NZers, get a damned spine, or you will be wiped off the face of the earth, I dare say.
John Armstrong was one of the journalists I rated. He had an ability to see both sides of an argument. Martyn, if he got it wrong from time to time – it is probably your view on what was being reported.
And Grant, it might well be said that, if he got it right from time to time – it is probably your view on what was being reported.
Armstrong said Sorry David for playing a large part in Cunliffe’s destruction? In my culture saying sorry is just the first step. You must make amends to all those hurt by your actions. Being deathly ill is no excuse for inaction…rather it is even more imperative. Watching. Waiting……
He didn’t apologise to Herald readers, he didn’t apologise to those of his fellow journalists who try their best to uphold the ethics of their profession and he didn’t apologise to posterity for being part of an attempt to undermine NZ democracy and 2014 election campiagn.
Armstrong got caught out by going to far in the Liu affair. He let the carefully crafted mask of the bipartisan political analyist slip.
Truth is, he has been working to an agenda for quite some time.
It’s not a game we are playing, when we all clap and say “well played” as he retires to the pavillion. Every success of the dirty politics operation and its periphial players such as the NZ Herald results in suffering for the least advantaged of society.
I’m not clapping.
Armstrong was one of the journalists leading the attacks on Key over the dirty politics saga.
You are really just ironically showing your own partisan leanings
This is one blogpost that I really wanted to avoid commenting on.
When Armstrong commented;
– I really wasn’t certain how to take it. I’m still ambivalent.
As some who looked at and into the Donghua Liu affair; and was given guidance by an honourable journalist (who I still cannot name, except as ‘Hercules’); and who pieced together as much of the plan to destroy Cunliffe’s career as I could, Armstrong played into the hands of those strategists who met in back rooms, out of public sight, to plot and plan.
Armstrong must know more about what went on than I do.
If Armstrong is apologetic, he has within his power, the ability to make things right.
He knows what to do. I don’t have to write it down for him.
Ironically, I think the most poignant piece he has written, was that of an apology to David Cunliffe, albeit that it created irrefutable damage.
What a crap article. You’ve spent months highlighting what a Tory toad this man is and now you try to have us believe that his retirement is a loss to good journalism. He made me want to vomit on several occasions during the last election. Good riddance! I say.
Yeah…I thought about that… then I thought about what a chameleon the guy really is.
He can piss off.
The sooner the better.
After he did what he did to Labour and Cunliffe… the man can piss off right now.
He might have had some credit back ..way back long ago – but he sure as hell sold his soul out to Key and his neo liberals.
And the ingratiating way he tried to sound balanced by writing the odd article of ‘ social importance’…
Nah – piss off mate.
He’s nothing more than a bloody media whore.
His true colours show in how he tried to constantly bolster up Key and his govt.
Better off without the bloody Benedict Arnold turncoat.
And I say that in view of a socially sensitive person like Dita De Boni who was stood down to juxtapose alongside of…. there aint no comparisons.
So piss off Armstrong ….. just piss off.
You’ll not be missed.
Sorry I don’t share your sentiments Martyn. In my opinion is good riddance to another National Party policy apologist. No doubt they will have another one to replace him so nothing gained really.
only really liked one column that John Armstrong wrote, it was about the opening of the Internet Mana Campaign at the West Auckland community hall on Gt North Rd, got the feeling he did not get out much as he was quite taken by the energy and talent but in subsequent weeks went back to his usual lugubrious self
he was a good enough writer as most journalists of his generation were trained to be, the problem was he was captured in all senses of the word, by the press gallery where tory loyalty is the unspoken creed
fair enough though Martyn to be magnanimous as a sick old chap “in the trade” retires
How sad these comments are. After a lifetime John Armstrong as a journalist.
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