Oh sweet Christ this is just becoming an excruciating self-mutilation now. A new JLR recording leaked to The Am Show showing Bennett and Bridges tried to cover up JLR’s “inappropriate behaviour” and used threats and promises to get him to go quietly has emerged and it’s exposed the danger Bridges now lives with, and that is daily recordings that can released at the drop of a hat which utterly destabilises his Leadership.
When you section one of your own political hitmen into a mental health facility against his will after setting him up with anonymous allegations, you have to expect a certain degree of blowback.
And blowback is what JLR has in spades.
With JLR due in Parliament on December 13th , and with the protection of Parliamentary Privilege, he can eviscerate Bridges and Bennett without risk of defamation. It’s going to make the ‘Red Wedding’ scene from Game of Thrones look like a polite misunderstanding between dear friends.
The Party will see Bridges inability to control events, they will see Bridges and his Deputy unable to reclaim the narrative and they will see their Poll results bleed out the way Simon Bridges did on The Am Show this morning.
Say what you will about Duncan Garner, but when it’s bare knuckle political journalism, Garner is brutal and just destroyed Bridges. I felt like I needed to call the Police to report witnessing an assault.
Bridges can’t survive this, not because what’s been released is any more damning than anything else that has been released in this pus pit of a Game of Thrones meets House of Cards meets Jaws meets Nightmare on Elm Street meets Saw meets #MeToo pantomime of the grotesque, but because his total inability to provide any control or cauterisation of this makes him powerless and a powerless leader in a shark tank of vicious power hungry National Party MPs is about as stable as Donald Trump at a feminist folk festival.
Unless something radical changes the current political landscape, this is the beginning of the end of Simon Bridges.
Judith will be taking late night calls now.
I’m trying to work out how under the protection of Parliamentary Privilege Ross can do stuff to Bridges.
He won’t get questions to ask will he? And they can’t be anything to do with Bridges. The Wednesday General Debate? Will he get a turn? When?
He can’t stand in the foyer and say stuff and be under protection.
Question Time doesn’t work like that. Members can ask questions as long as they have first been lodged with the Clerk. The scope of the potential questions is almost “unlimited”.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/visit-and-learn/how-parliament-works/parliamentary-practice-in-new-zealand/chapter-39-questions/
https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features-pre-2016/document/00NZPHomeNews201210161/question-time-in-the-house
Ant guesses on where the leak came from and who has the tapes?
An oily crustacean maybe?
We know the leaker has mental health issues. We know there’s a blubbery blogger with this affliction, who also just happens to be friends with JLR.
Yep, Crusha will galvanise the right and polarise electorates so much so, you’ll know what youre gunnah get! Left of Centre Right been Labour teritory and Crusha on the Right! Simple ay.
2020? Snake eyes collins… Prime Minister of New Zealand.
2020.5? China begins building a bridge from Beijing to Wellington via Indonesia and Australia.
2021? Yanks and thier allies take a dim view of such.
2021.5 Full scale nuclear war erupts. trump selfies himself on twitter riding a nuclear war head to Earth hollerin “Yeeeeee Haaaawwww ! ”
2021.55 All life on earth is dead.
Gee thanks jude. Thanks very bloody much.
You take the cake Countryboy. Yee Haa I hope you are wrong.
Simple Simon has got to be rolled now? He’s a turd waiting to be flushed. Everybody in the party must see that now? If they dont, then the Nat’s are well and truely fuck’d for a while longer.
Yeah he is turd but the problem is his party is full of turds
Is the same recording that was reported on the RNZ website as showing proof of how concerned Bennett and Bridges were about JLR’s mental health?
I’m presuming there haven’t been two recordings released on the AM show today – in which case RNZ seem to be auditioning to become the new National Party mouthpiece. Only an idiot would call them red radio.
Ahhh, I just went to RNZ to get the link and they’ve basically rewritten the story to be a bit more realistic
Yep. RNZ. Just think Morning Report with Espiner and Nine to Noon with Ryan? Plus all the others.
One thing we’ve seen is how politics is done behind closed doors, out of sight of the public glare. And it’s not pretty. I fear this may harm our political/democratic traditions as much as it will damage National itself.
This is not a time for rejoicing, as much as I have zero sympathy for Bridges, Collins, Bennett, Ross, etc.
If Duncs keeps it up he may improve his ratings.
I don’t care if Nats back stab each other, but I care that they seem to have no established processes for addressing sexual harassment in the work place.
If Paula Bennett collected details of women affected by Ross, then sending him away for a few months with the offer of promotion further along the track is a Catholic Church type scenario.Avoiding giving him the facts about the supposed offences to enable him to address them, is devious and counterproductive, and it minimalises the experience of alleged victims.
This is the work place of NZ’s political leaders, and all of a sudden it easy to see why Key seemed to regard his serial pony tail pulling as having a bit of fun. As leaders, they are inappropriate. Collins now personally publicly criticising an educated couple being able to afford to buy a home
puts her in the same inappropriate league as Bennett, and heaven help all of us if these two mouthy women continue to disregard conventional civilised boundaries.
Just weighing in ..
I don’t know about all this “..Game of Thrones meets House of Cards meets Jaws..” stuff.
The National party is just BANAL and if tragic people who watch the AM Show want to vote for these half-baked, wannabee leaders – so be it~!!!
Honestly, not even Hannibal Lecter would want to eat these politicians brains. This whole saga is pathetic and illustrates that many NZ electors have mashed potatoes for brains.
Chur
With every tape released Simon Bridges may lose a bit of credibility or face in the eyes of some, but at the same time JLR does also not look that great.
National MPs know though, if Bridges resigns, then there will be a nasty internal competition, a bit like the ones Labour had in opposition, so they will want to avoid this, and rather keep supporting Bridges.
To the observer, not attending to much detail, it will look like squabbling between a Nat defector, and his former leader, and only if the polls will start going down for National, e.g. below 35 percent, then will there be serious consequences for Simon Bridges and a potential change in leadership.
For now he still seems to be able to survive all this.
Simon is a Master Political Genius.
He spent 130,000 on a tour to prove how unpopular he was.
Too take the heat out of that waste of our money he leaked his leek and loosely blame JLR for being enough to shag the deputy.
A pile of inquiries popped up and I pretty much lost interest then.
But people sure ain’t talking about the 139,000 bucks no more, that’s like spilled potato chips now.
The public are over it and don’t care. More interested in the colossal mess made by Ian Lee Galloways, which he won’t survive. Simon will survive this, storm in an eggcup. Two more years and the Nats are back!
You are dreaming aren’t you lara so if a person makes one mistake in your books they are gone that would have meant that national would have had to replace a lot of ministers like big Gerry busting through the airport security now did he get the sack lara no no he didn’t oh then there was pull the benefit, she leaked a beneficiaries private details now did she get the sack no no instead she got a promotion can you see the pattern.
For the (must be very few) people like @Lara who may perhaps have been hit by a Lime scooter and spent a few weeks out of circulation recovering in hospital, a big news story broke.
Turns out the National party sells list positions for dollars, suppresses sexual misconduct and bullying, and has a secret rating system for Asians.
So yeah – just a wee corruption problem. Not exactly a “storm in an eggcup”.
Yeah, but polls would suggest National supporters don’t care. I don’t think you’re grasping that at least 40% of NZ electors will vote for National no matter what.
National are backwards and corrupt, what a revelation .. is this new news to you?
Nope not “new news” to me. Perhaps I should have used a /sarc tag or something.
And no, “at least 40% of NZ electors will vote for National no matter what” is by no means a given.
In 2002 half that 40% abandoned the party in the first of the Dipton Dipstick’s two election losses.
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