Posts by Grant McDougall
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Last week there was a story on Newshub about a rumour that National was not going to give Seymour a free pass in Epsom next election.
When asked about this, Simon Bridges was very vague and non-committal about continuing the free pass.
I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of "we'll cross that - [no pun intended] - bridge when we come to it" - hardly a ringing endorsement of confidence.
I suspect National are heartily sick of Act and see them as little more than nuisance value. Plus, I suspect Paul Goldsmith will really throw his toys if he doesn't become the electorate MP in 2020. -
A lot of us here in Dunedin that were contemporaries of his in the early - mid '90s are pretty proud of Grant. I last spoke to him in person three years ago (at a Tiny Ruins gig !) just after he'd became finance spokesman.
He told me he'd been given that portfolio because Andrew Little thought he'd be best at, as he put it "selling our policies to the public".
It's also pretty cool that the Minister of Finance knows who the likes of Shayne Carter, etc, are, too.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: In troubled…, in reply to Silke Hartung,
Too funny that there’s controversy about the Dunedin Sound article. Isn’t it awesome that there’s new music that people love, coming from Dunedin?
You miss the point of the controversy. The controversy is that said article portrays a handful of the more commercial, post-Six60 new bands as being the sum total of new bands, yet completely ignores the umpteen other new bands that are also around, which aren't playing the mainstream music the bands in the article do.
Disclosure: I lived next-door to some of the members of one band for a year, so am familiar with them and their music. I'll be polite - it's not my cup of tea and I far prefer some of the more challenging, adventurous bands around, than a bunch of dude-bros.
-
Wow, loved reading your reminiscing, David - thank you. I read the NME from the early '80s to mid '90s and thought it was a damn fine magazine.
But then I started going off it, I simply couldn't abide Brit-pop.
Fun while it lasted.
-
It'd be interesting to be a fly on the wall when the promoter(s) and their staff sat down for a debrief yesterday or today, that's for sure. Wonder if they'll make any public comment on the P/Duk balls-up.
-
Up Front: Why a Woman is Like a Bicycle, in reply to Moz,
Some time ago I suggested to Andrew Geddis on PA that he might like to try cycling for this exact reason and his response was "no, not convenient".
Given that he lives way the hell out at Purakanui, from a purely practical view, it actually isn't for him.
I expect he sympathises a) with the gist of this column and, b) cycling in general, but it's "not convenient" for him because Purakanui is a good 30min drive to his work along very narrow, twisting countries roads for the first half, then a road with heavy trucks zipping along continuously on it for the second.
Also, he's an academic - bit hard to carry a couple of hundred assignments on a bike, eh ?
-
Hard News: Music: 2017 – this is not a list, in reply to Nick Melchior,
It's also on CD, too.
-
The great Nick Cave is 60 today, too. God, at one point it looked like he'd struggle to make it to 30.
-
I’ve left the largest of the looming deficits facing New Zealand until last: climate change and the environment.
A few close friends of mine are long-term DOC employees. One in particular is very high up in one of the conservancies.
They reckon that National's lack of interest in these issues is a) because it's not an economic, money-making industry, so who cares ? and, b) the people that are interested in these issues aren't generally National voters, so who cares ?
National's general ignorance on these issues is beyond the pale.
-
Hard News: The Day After Tomorrow, in reply to simon g,
Optimistic - because if National win, it will be very unpopular very soon, and soon Peters will join Dunne in retirement and the left will win a landslide next time
Completely agree. Bill English - win or lose - has ran his last campaign as National Party leader.
If he wins, Nat will indeed become less popular and Judith Collins will stab him in the back, as per Bolger / Shipley. If becoming PM, even if briefly, means taking the Nats down with her, she'll settle for that.
If he loses, he'll retire to the backbenches, if not altogether, very quickly. He's been in Parliament for 27 years already and he has little stomach for three years in opposition these days, I imagine.
If Labour does lose this time, nothing is more certain than a) English being rolled and, b) Labour absolutely thrashing National in 2020.