Too many Johns in this story. #Confusing ;)

1) Teapottapegate is the proverbial storm in a tea cup, but there?s a certain amount of (justified) paranoia in Nat circles about how rogue tape recordings will be sliced up and spun.

2) Far from being ?potentially a game-changer?,?

It's not hard to see how the?

No. But that's not how the HoS editor is describing it – the tape is 'breathtaking', 'a game-changer', that?

I don't think it's outrageous to say that the Epsom deal is perceived as a political jack-up, and that this incident fosters the immersion?

To be fair, it was Milne who used the word "breathtaking", and in a particular context:

But it's the?

does not include such a communication occurring in circumstances in which any party ought reasonably to expect that the communication may be intercepted by some other?

and such a predictable tactic that the media who have swallowed it should feel like fools

Comparing a contrived photo op in a public setting a metre from an invited press posse with hacking of private phone conversations is masterful spin, breathlessly regurgitated by TVNZ and others.

I agree, we can only watch on and see what affect this has. Any publisher that does?

Also, comparisons with the News of the World are?

And John Key said more this morning:

Key said he would not give permission for the tape to be released because "once you start News of the World tactics?

Every press secretary knows that the public despises the media, even more so than politicians (especially?

My (highly negative) opinion of *cough* electoral accommodations has been crystal clear, and unchanged,?

Ummm...what would have happened if there were two lip readers outside the window and giving a running commentary of the two J's chitchat??

Radio NZ's Epsom vox pops this morning didn't seem to bear out this theory.

I've mentioned in another thread that it's a relic of the FPP?

look over there

Would neatly sidestep the table recording issue.

Apart from confirming my suspicion that Newmarket is a test site for franchising the Malebolge on Earth? Not a lot. :)

It can be argued that it?

According to Price, only if they'd issued a media release inviting the media to attend their?

much like trained martial artists/boxers are a weapon, legally.
oh they'll love that. :)

And I suspect we'll have to wait till next Sunday to find out the ending.

And, Russell, the editor said it would have shared the front page with the Zac Guildford story, which was a massive story by anyone's news judgment. So,?

Key could have made a dick move, creating a story where there was none, or it could work out – maybe the conversation was banal, and he's refusing on principle, hoping to lure opposition into focusing on it. Then he can authorize the release?

I'm not sure that they can, given than John Key's movements are probably highly scrutinised at present, and a meeting in private might suggest that they really were plotting something nasty.

In that case, Joyce should be taken out behind the barn and shot for breaking one of the Ten Commandments of Modern Electioneering.?

It could be absolutely anything, given the tiny tidbits of nothingness we've got so far. Could be nothing more than a belief by the Herald people that the tone of two really rich?

Not around here, anyway. (Sorry, needed to be said.)

Yeah this still astounds me – especially when Brash came out last week clamouring for the abolition of Kiwisaver itself.

I don't reckon, on either score. The PM can move in secret if he so desires, and has the?

Not by my judgement. Gossip? yes. Sports news? yes. Worth a few sniggers on Twitter? definitely. Deserving most of every front page in the frickin' country? Hell no.

What, nastier than their actual manifestos and public statements? Now, that's scary.

I hadn?t watched Stuff?s video of the event until just now.

It?s a right old pantomime. But Banks looks humiliated most of the time.

like an old dog, I thought

I take it they have already established that the transcript is more damning than the verbal recording complete with tone.

I think everyone?s over-thinking this! They?ve called for a transcript because Johns has said there?s a transcript. I seriously doubt they?ve heard the actual recording.

Or something of that order, yes. But that's a very good guess.

oh, missed that.

They do have something to lose – image. Key has gained popularity every time his honesty has been called into question by Labour. There is a risk that?

There seems to be bugger all else on that table except a big black bag. I wonder if the conversation went like

JB" eh John is that your manbag?"
JK " not exactly Johnny B, I passed my bloke test, don't?

It was in Johns' Morning Report interview. He said that he hadn't heard the actual recording.

Well, why clear out the journalists at a media event, then?

hopefully Key was saying he would not be voting for Banks which he did go onto say publicly

Sorry, no.?

Oh, if Grant managed to say all that with a straight face I want to have his?

To give it authenticity as a cup of tea? And to avoid undermining the authenticity of it by having to actually script a careful conversation about politics, or undermine any political purpose in it at all by talking only?

Obvious fake.

If it's as described in the story, then it is extremely serious. I trust we will hear more on this.

So?

I think 3410 was being ironic :-)

Stuff?s Twitter account is reporting that Key will complain to the police over the matter.

It?s probably a decent strategy for Key and his people ? to reframe it as a criminal offence against him ? but it?s also a bit?

Yeah, but not for months. And even then, a decision by police that there was no criminality involved wouldn't mean publication?

Although Banks doesn't drink he does call in to meet up with friends at the Cavalier, just as Winston Peters does, (he does like a tipple). Banks did afterall once own it?

No, I think that a conversation?

Yes, where in the 7*24*4 = 672 hours during the campaign could they possibly find the time to pick up a telephone? Or get any of their?

Same. But I am familiar with editorial environments and I know two or th three journalists involved.

Maybe there is a real leak here, which would explain the instant Labour lockjaw?

I needed a laugh

totally – and Johns was always an impressive editor at the Waikato Times.

They were.

Oh and writing that what they said is game changing then refusing to say more has a weird burlesque feel to it.

Johns sounded fairly stressed on the radio this morning.?

He was. He's an intelligent man.

National has got form on bullying the media when it goes off-message in cultivating the cult of Key.

You'd probably have to elaborate about the risks. The recording/transcript has not been released yet, so there's not much of a limb there, is there?

Bryce Johns said Key was doing "an exceptional job at deflecting the attention in this saga from what he said".

"I've got a bit of disdain for the prime minister right now and the lines they are running."

Senior editorial?

Banks announced his Tea party the day before if I recall correctly. He said it was the afternoon.
Key will complain to the police over the matter.
...Could mean he is complaining to the Police for their incompetence in looking at?

Key is to make a criminal complaint at 4pm today and Joyce has already issued an incredibly aggressive media statement. That's a limb and a?

I imagine m'learned friends are mulling over that one already.

I believe Steven Price rather generously leaned in the direction of expectation of privacy based on the media being ushered onto the other side of the glass.

If the idea of laying charges is to tie?

Given the way this government has consistently shunned certain media outlets without consequence, one risk is being denied access for another 3 years.

Yes, but what else could the Herald have done? Destroyed the tape? Things heard can't be unheard. The news is out there now. It's?

How many years did it take for?

Bradley Ambrose says he was filming the meeting in Epsom between John Key and John Banks when Mr Banks started answering questions.

He says that's when he put his microphone on the table.

"I had enough time and enough space just to?

Yes, I really thought that's what they'd do. Color me surprised.

Given the way this government has consistently shunned certain media outlets without consequence, one risk is?

It does come across as unfathomably contemptuous.

Oddly enough, I don't think it's done Sarkozy any harm is a country where criticism of Israel is not automatically seen as rank anti-Semitism. Obama makes a simple statement of fact in response, and the usual suspects on the psychotic right have a collective meltdown.

Well, like I said, face to face. It is likely that there are things that the two Johns?

If this is confirmed as a fact and Steven Price's analysis is correct, and I've no?

It's one of the stories of campaign 2011, so they didn't need to do any more than announce the place and time. 40 reporters and camera?

bravo

And however tempting a collective editorial spite-fuck like that would be, I'd respectfully suggest both the BSA and Press Council would have quite a bit to say about that – especially?

Put nicely by SF writer and historian Brian Aldiss, ?hubris clobbered by Nemesis?.

While I'm on a brief classical roll, despite the depravity of many Emperors, I've loved the Roman custom of having a slave ride in the chariot of?

Unfathomably?

It's quite fathomable to me that someone at Campaign HQ needs a good hard sucker punch for not doing the bloody simple "cut and paste relevant policy talking points into an e-mail and hit send"job that's probably been sitting on someone's task list?

Not necessarily conspiratorial, just disdainful. It's not inconsistent with their normal approach to RNZ.

In what Universe are these guys unable to have a face to face meeting to do whatever signalling they haven't already done with each other a?

interesting snippet from that Manawatu Standard story about other campaign events:

The ministerial offices have been keeping MPs' movements on the campaign trail close to their chests in the past few weeks. Media advisories have been distributed?

In the same way John Howard didn't much like the ABC. Yet somehow the ABC is in a far stronger position than RNZ when there's a fiscal lasersight pointed at it.

The essence of all conspiracy theories is that those in power are competent.

This rather overstates the case (it?s?

Because?

URGENT MEDIA ADVISORY
November 14, 2011, 5:22 pm

Police have confirmed that the this afternoon we have received a formal complaint from the Prime Minister Right Honourable John Key concerning an allegation that a private conversation between himself and the Honourable John Banks has been unlawfully recorded.?

So, what was that about a secret agenda? seems it is so secret the police are now protecting the Prime Minister from the people.

More like King Cnut, trying to hold back the tide of public opinion.

Such as when Bill English was taped during the previous election? Or when Obama and Sarkozy were recently, regarding Netanyahu?

Why now?

Because National have no policy left to announce, it is just a sideshow. Can you really imagine Key and Banks having anything important to say. Just gossip about Peters that's all.

Not necessarily.

"where any person discloses the private communication, or the substance, meaning, or purport of the communication or any part of it

The courts would need to decide if the Herald's published stories?

the quotes above are enough.

damn popular place, despite the quake

Possibly, but that's a matter first for the Police and then the Courts.

I might've misunderstood Russell's point, my point was the disclosure alone isn't a matter the Police would likely prosecute as (a) the HoS claim the recording was inadvertant and (b) the existence?

Neither am I, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea that?

As Judi Lapsley Miller predicted in this very thread earlier today!

heh.

Um, not quite, but thanks : ). See my Location. The initials are a hang over from work days, when I didn't want to be seen indulging in political discourse in work hours. After four years of blissful retirement?

Unless I misunderstand him, the National MP is here suggesting the Herald on Sunday?s alleged behaviour is worse than that of a British tabloid with an institutional culture of mendacity so endemic and rotten that it was closed down by its owners; a paper that hacked the phone of a?

I'll bear that in mind next time I invite the media to my photo op

No. Lange v Atkinson related to the question of whether there exists a qualified privilege defence for an individual who is sued in defamation by a politician, on the basis of things the individual says about the politician's public actions. It has nothing to do with privacy.

And what?

That is what I thought too.
The fact that Key has gone to the trouble of involving the police would tend to?

Oh, Sasha – I think there are legitimate ethical questions here, and assessing any possible illegality is way above my pay grade. But, yeah, my hackles start to ripple when folks think saying "photo op"?

Lots of people die in an impressively bloody manner and there aren't too many big words.

Does that break the embargo?

It is, after all, a fairly straightforward question that could be put to ACT without needing to hear any secret tapes. They're standing Banks and not Brash in the electorate. This means there is every chance Banks could end?

The 3 News story.

Maybe not.

NZ First leader Winston Peters told 3 News he thought Mr Key should ?release them?

And this morning on RNZ Winnie was saying that the media were engaging in despicable, illegal News of the World tactics and that was all there was to it. A day is a long?

Amongst the questions you'd expect – how are you voting for: party/electorate/MMP referendum- and a couple around National Standards, moving to Australia etc.

I was?

too recent

The woman talked at the start and conclusion about how it wasn't a sales pitch and about how I was in the draw to win a $500 voucher.

I don't think?

That could be any time.
;-)

Hone's wiping the floor in the Te Tai Tokerau debate on Maori TV Presidential, yet with a comforting amount of swearing just so you know he he hasn't been bodysnatched.

And some quality questions too.