Hard News: Nasty
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Exactly what are the core principles that might differentiate National and won't be abandoned?
I don't think its controversial to say that Nationals core principle (that differentiates them from Labour) is that they prefer market based solutions instead of state or government based solutions.
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And I'd also like the Nats to tell us what they want to do when they get into power, but since they're slaughtering the government in the polls but dip a little in popularity every time they open their mouths I'm not holding my breath.
Me neither. The more that Labour make pinning Key down part of their strategy the less we will hear from Key. It's not over yet, Key's silence could start turning against him, but I'm expecting that's exactly when the Nats will start releasing policy statements, not a moment before. And they will be the kind of statements which aren't much more elucidating than silence. They'll just sound better.
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I think they're just trying to get the words 'John Key' and 'Serious Fraud Office' lodged in peoples brains early on.
Yeah but its a bit like the WMD thing. You can bang on about something all you like but once the curtain is pulled and the stage is revealed to be bare then its you who look stupid.
<a lesson for any side> -
Yeah but its a bit like the WMD thing. You can bang on about something all you like but once the curtain is pulled and the stage is revealed to be bare then its you who look stupid.
So long as the curtain is pulled after the election, or after the war in the case of WMDs, would they care?
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heh heh ... yes, I almost forgot we were talking about **POLITICIANS!!**
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Yeah but its a bit like the WMD thing. You can bang on about something all you like but once the curtain is pulled and the stage is revealed to be bare then its you who look stupid.
Last time I looked a frighteningly large number of Americans still think Iraq had WMD's.
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What is it with right wingers and attempted online bullying? A sniffy potty mouth seem to the the true marker of an online Tory.
Tom, if you've posted comments of various other blogs under the handle 'TomS' then I'd respectfully suggest you're in about as strong a position to get Miss Manners on anyone's arse, as Lindsay Lohan is to offer defensive driving tips. As for 'on-line bullying', I guess it's a useful tactic to shut down discussion by calling other peoples Nazis or Stalinists - and can't say my shit don't stink when it comes to the latter - but God... it's boring, intellectually lazy and no less a bully boy tactic because it's (slightly) subtle.
I don't think its controversial to say that Nationals core principle (that differentiates them from Labour) is that they prefer market based solutions instead of state or government based solutions.
Oh, of course it is Danyl. It's not only controversial but downright wicked if you treat politics as a secular religion - where there's the righteous, the holy writ that must not be questioned and a whole world of infidels and heretics for whom there is no depravity they aren't capable of.
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DM: "Nationals core principle (that differentiates them from Labour) is that they prefer market based solutions instead of state or government based solutions."
You mean like 1980s Labour?
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Yeah, come to think of it "John Key's wiki isn't being vandalised hardly at all" is much more of a story than "John Key's wiki has been vandalised."
No, I think it's a great story once you untangle the double (triple?) negative - because if "John Key's wiki isn't being vandalised hardly at all" - doesn't that mean it's being vandalised quite a lot? It's kind of interesting in a meta-geeky kind of way, but how seriously can anyone actually take Wikipaedia on any subject that's contentious to any degree?
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Judith Collins is a good reminder of why I won't vote National.
Now I just wish I knew who I could vote for next year...
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Now I just wish I knew who I could vote for next year...
Doesn't matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in...
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No, I think it's a great story once you untangle the double (triple?) negative - because if "John Key's wiki isn't being vandalised hardly at all" - doesn't that mean it's being vandalised quite a lot?
You know I was ironically referencing popular culture by loading in the ambiguous extra negative so you'd all think I was cool. Don't you?
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Of course - when I get lost in the whichy thickets (ripped off from Tom Wolfe's splendidly bitchy hack job on the New Yorker) I'm just being delightfully retro. :)
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You mean like 1980s Labour?
Jason: I know I'm on a hiding to nothing, but didn't the Labour Government actually increase their majority in 1987? Don't think that was all down to boobs who were thoroughly bamboozled by the Rogernomes; and while the likes of Chris Trotter would argue the point at the top of their lungs until their dying day, some of us don't actually think the Fourth Labour Government was the parliamentary equivalent of a slasher flick.
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thugs like Collins
A total thug. Collins is clearly being groomed as a potential National Party govt's "boot-boy", in the same way that Mallard is Clark's, Birch was Bolger's, Prebble was Lange's and Muldoon was, er, Muldoon's.
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Heh. Chris Trotter thinks the fourth Labour government was the parliamentary equivalent of Sir Lancelot, bringing down the glorious Camelot from within.
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No, I think it's a great story once you untangle the double (triple?) negative - because if "John Key's wiki isn't being vandalised hardly at all" - doesn't that mean it's being vandalised quite a lot?
It's not a double negative. Not hardly at all doesn't necessarily mean lots. It could mean not at all. And that's the usual interpretation. It's emphatic, rather than negating. It's making the point that it's nothing, not just close to nothing. Rather like "I wouldn't give you 2 cents for that". Popular culture is cleverer than you think, sometimes. There's a difference between something that's worth jack, and something that ain't worth jack. The difference is ain't worth jack, but it's there.
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Craig: "... some of us don't actually think the Fourth Labour Government was the parliamentary equivalent of a slasher flick."
I wasn't intending to pass judgement (in this instance), just thought it was ironic that DM's example of a core National principle was actually introduced in practice by a Labour Govt (and might more rightly be claimed by Act today). Before that we had interventionist Govts for a very long time. I think a more genuine core National value is social conservatism, although even that is changing.
I guess my real question is whether Collins' position on these issues is of value to National electorally.
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You mean like 1980s Labour?
Sure, but I think its fair to say that it is no longer Labour Party policy to effectively abolish the state and let markets somehow solve all our problems.
I think a more genuine core National value is social conservatism.
Arguable. I doubt Don Brash would have agreed with you. We don't really know what John Key thinks but I'd guess he's also more liberal than conservative. Katherine Rich, Chris Finlayson, Simon Power et al are certainly not conservatives.
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Update: it has been brought to my attention that the reporter, Derek Cheng, isn't the one to blame for the Herald's Wikipedia story.
Sounds like it was the newsdesk deciding there was a story there wasn't and the poor reporter having to write it. So, the paper bring its reporter into disrepute rather than the reverse.
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Well, thanks for that Russell - Derek Cheng would hardly be the first hack to have occasion to chant the old mantra "the chief reporter giveth, the chief reporter taketh away, cursed be the name of the chief reporter." :)
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some of us don't actually think the Fourth Labour Government was the parliamentary equivalent of a slasher flick.
Were you there, Craig?
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Jackie:
It's flattering that you think I'm that young, but I was twelve in 1984, voted for the first time in 1990, and did not spend the term of the Fourth Labour Government with a canteen of silver spoons in my gob.
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WH,
some of us don't actually think the Fourth Labour Government was the parliamentary equivalent of a slasher flick.
rant follows.
New Zealand paid a high price for the the neo-liberal economic ideology that links the economic policies of Douglas, Richardson and Birch. A lot has been written about how our government was essentially hijacked by Treasury briefings - Douglas' book sets how it was done.
That isn't to say that everything the Fourth Labour Government did was wrong, but neo-liberalism did a lot of damage to our country. We had to wait 15 years before a more moderate movement could restore some balance. In the meantime, wage and salary earners languished under the ERA, we had our health and education systems deliberately starved of funds, there was not enough capital or infrastructure spending, and we had a government that was committed to under-regulation, tax cuts and asset sales. Our backwater of an economy missed out on the global boom that was the 1990's. Vapid economic slogans were used to paper over policy failures and maintain a sense of orthodoxy.
Maybe our technocrats just lacked the maturity to introduce more careful reform after the excesses of Muldoon, but there were real consequences of the movement that Douglas helped to lead. Clinton, Blair and Clark had to fight tooth and nail to first establish their own economic credentials, and then conclusively prove that neo-liberalism is a defective economic theory.
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Heh. Chris Trotter thinks the fourth Labour government was the parliamentary equivalent of Sir Lancelot, bringing down the glorious Camelot from within.
Not to dumb down the conversation or anything, but did anyone else read the article in last month's Metro and go "Damn, Chris Trotter was kinda hot in 1981"?
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