Whatever you think of Hooton, as a columnist he has the right to criticise and critique politicians and as long as he doesn’t defame that politician by lying about them, then his right to be critical of a politician is supposed to be sacrosanct and backed 100% by his Publisher and Editor.
Not to be put off by the years-long public debate about this country leading youth suicide statistics from the wrong end, Commissioner Kevin Allan has bravely gone where no-one employed by the previous Government had hitherto dared to tread – he has actually (wait for it…) recommended a 10% reduction in suicides target! That’s correct – not zero, not halving it, not even the mild 20% reduction that the current Health Minister suggested while in opposition – but a nice, fat, round 10%.
Avid readers of this blog (such as there are) should know that my three current topmost concerns are gender equality, education and justice. And, just for once, real political progress has begun (perhaps just a stake in the ground) on all three this week.
Jacinda visited our arsehole cousins across the ditch and all she got was this T-shirt…
Jacinda is off to the Pacific to desperately try to counter Chinese influence throughout the Pacific…
Thank you for your invitation to join you in Chile on 8th March, at my own expense, for the signing of the resurrected Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that your own party in Opposition said was seriously flawed.
For the last decade, to avoid the horror of systemic financial market collapse in 2007/2008, $30Trillion has been printed and pumped into the global economy falsely creating the lowest inflation rates for 5000 years. That seems about as far removed from the concept of sound market fundamentals as The AM Show is from intellectual curiosity.
As the ‘left’ moves to the centre, I find myself on the further margins of the spectrum. Here I am, left of Labour and greener than the Greens, looking for everyday solutions as well as system level change to solve the problems of our era. I can’t see how incremental and conservative capitalist prescriptions can ever be the remedy for environmental collapse, economic inequality or social exclusion at their present scale.
What many on the Left, and certainly within the political punditry, don’t appreciate or understand is that Labour’s victory last year was set in motion a year earlier by Matt McCarten’s ‘Big Tent’ strategy that aimed at expanding Labour’s voter base while eliminating National’s support partners.
Simon passed so much evil legislation in 9 years, it’s hard for him to keep track of them all.