When somebody says or does something a bit gauche in politics and then seemingly doubles down upon it, there are two general explanations. Either it’s a genuine error which, out of pride or lack of comprehension of the nature of the sin, they’re refusing to extricate themselves from.
There’s a few things to be said around Shane Jones’ recent skirmishing with part of the Indian community over immigration changes.
Here’s a few unfortunate patterns. Mediaworks is once again in dire financial straits; and once again, some are attempting to assert that this is because private enterprise just can’t compete with a Government owned … company that also works like private enterprise [i.e. TVNZ].
Over the past week or two, there’s been quite a bit of buzz about New Zealand First out there in the media.
I gotta say – it’s rather odd seeing Simon Bridges attempt to attack Jacinda Ardern for not attempting to press Donald J. Trump on climate change, at their meeting earlier this week.
I see New Zealand First has put out a press statement which seeks to condemn Simon Bridges for his recent positive interview…
So in the wake of a recent Newshub piece that quotes National’s Simon Bridges enthusiastically talking up the Chinese Communist Party – not, you know, the People’s Republic of China, but the Communist Party *itself*, various portions of my newsfeed have understandably been understandably just a little surprised and more than a little bemused that Blue is apparently The New Red
Now, I hesitate in the extreme to term The Herald’s John Roughan a “genius”. Yet every time I read one of his more “ideological” columns, that sort of sentiment seems to spring to mind. A sort of more-cynical/paranoid version of the famed ‘Hanlon’s Razor’ – “never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by stupidity”.
On the one hand, attempting to blame every little thing on “The Clintons” and/or some other, further elite conspiracy efforts … as hilarious as it can be, is often overtly ridiculous. On the *other* hand … Jeffrey Epstein somehow managing to kill himself *while on suicide watch* following his previous attempt, allegedly via hanging, suggests that *at minimum* there’s been some almost unbelievable incompetence by his jailers.
Watching the course of developments around Ihumatao over the past few months, it is hard to escape the sensation that something extraordinary has happened. What would, some decades ago, perhaps have been written off as a “Maori” issue by much of New Zealand – and consequentially, disparaged, denied, and turned into a pit of talkback-radio excoriation – has in fact managed to attain broad support from across the community.
