Chris Trotter

THE TRAILERS for “That’s A Bit Racist” had not filled me with confidence. There was a tone that positively yelled: “Anyone who doesn’t like the sound of this programme is almost certainly part of the problem.” In other words, the programme showed every sign of making huge assumptions about the history, nature and extent of racism in New Zealand. The dumbed-down script, delivered in the overly-familiar diction of the contemporary radio and television host, only deepened my suspicions.

THOSE SHOCKED TO DISCOVER that unnamed British civil servants have briefed The Times on Jeremy Corbyn’ “mental and physical frailty”, shouldn’t be. Corbyn is merely the Leader of the Opposition. In 1936, the British civil service, instructed to spy on their own sovereign, King Edward VIII, did not refuse. The explanation for civil servants’ willingness to intercept the telephone calls of the reigning monarch is the same as for their willingness to brief against the Opposition leader to the Murdoch press. In both cases, the targeted individuals were considered “unfit for office”.

The alternative to state funding of infrastructure is, of course, to fund it by taking on massive amounts of private debt. On this issue, at least, Tamihere has some solid points to make. In his own colourful turn of phrase, Goff and the Auckland Council have “maxed-out the credit card”. If the City is to preserve its international credit rating of AA, then it simply cannot afford to take on any more debt. What’s more, the rest of the country cannot afford for Auckland to take on any more debt.

The dangers of giving the angry and ignorant their own media outlet was demonstrated most powerfully in the early 1790s, just as the French Revolution was entering the phase known to history as “The Reign of Terror”.

JACINDA ARDERN HAILS her government as the most committed to delivering progressive change since the mid-1970s. In other words, since the Third Labour Government of Norman Kirk and Bill Rowling (1972-1975). Before assessing whether or not the Prime Minister’s claim is true, it is worth considering what on earth possessed her to make it.

HOW VERY DIFFERENT the university campuses of 2019 are from the campuses of 1981. Thirty-eight years is a long time. There will be lecturers and tutors on campus today who weren’t even born in the year the Springboks came to tour. To those whose job it is to look back into the darker episodes of our past, New Zealand must seem like another country. Just how much that other country differed from the New Zealand of today was driven home to me while listening to RNZ journalist Katie Scotcher’s story on this morning’s (24/6/19) edition of Morning Report.

If the NZDF’s obfuscation turns out to have been inspired by American sensitivities regarding the part played by their helicopter gunship/s (and its/their supposedly defective gunsight/s) in killing Tirgiran villagers, then the painfully restored relationship between New Zealand and its “very, very, good” American friends will come under strain.

THE TERM “WHITE SUPREMACIST” is rapidly replacing the more straightforward “racist” in mainstream journalism. The term is also being used to describe the belief system of Philip Arps, the self-confessed Nazi who was sentenced earlier this week to 21 months imprisonment.

Building mass support in 2019-20 is all about pitting oneself and one’s party against the “elites” and the impermeable “Establishment” those elites are pledged to defend. Seymour appears to believe that he can offer the right-wing populists the protection they need from New Left “intolerance” while, in the same breath, promising “the big end of town” the gift of tax cuts and a permanent deregulatory crusade.

That this regularly involves burly police officers carrying distraught and screaming children from their family home is a fact which Oranga Tamariki is very keen to keep from the public.